The Emotion Factor: Chapter V

CHAPTER V

CONFRONTATIONS WITH THE MAN IN RED AND THE DARK KING:

GENERAL GORNO AND KING REVIL.

NOTE: This chapter is also in my book folder as well, along with whatever changes that had to be made. This will be left "as is" just cause I feel like it.






         Following the directions on the note that he received from the Holy Father, Burbont finally ends up just in eye sight of King Revil’s castle—after four days on foot. By the time he got there, the sun was just touching the highest mountain top far in the distance. “Man, why is everywhere I’ve gone so far so damn far apart?” He knew that his whining wasn’t helping the situation anymore as it was. “Well, this castle must be it. It’s enormous.” Just looking at the castle, he thought his neck would give out from the sheer size of it. From the front alone, the castle looked to be about fifty feet across, and the height seemed to top off at the tallest tower standing probably eight stories from the base of the castle. The castle had about six or eight towers, but Burbont couldn’t see if there were more from where he was standing. The entire castle was structured of strong bricks of stone made of marble. The windows were constructed of stain glass, with a man’s image on it, most likely the current king. After taking all of this in, he sees at the entrance two knights guarding the entrance to the castle, completely in black armor and swords in their hands at the ready. Burbont sheaths his sword knowing if it was out, they would strike him down without a second thought. After placing his sword inside his sheath, he approaches the armored knights. Just like the last guards from Tranquidor, the two knights aimed their weapons towards him in suspicion.

         “Halt! State your reason for approaching this castle!” Their shouting struck deep into his eardrums as he grabbed his composure.

         “I want to know who owns this castle.” He kept his questions simple to avoid anything.

         “Why would a lowly traveler like you want to know this?”

         Taking a wild guess to see what he could get, Burbont asked, “Would this castle happen to be, Revil’s Castle, by any chance?” The guards had a small silence at his guess at the owner of the castle. “It is, isn’t it?”

         “You guessed right, little man. However,” the guard on the right’s tone increased. “No one is allowed into this castle that’s not under Revil’s command. And don’t bother saying that you’re one of his new underlings to try to get in: he’s taking no one else as of last year. Now get lost, runt!”

         Burbont clearly saw that he was not going to receive entry from the guards, so he took a few paces backwards and then turned around to proceed walking away from the castle. Heading back to the edge of the forest, he made sure he was out of the guards’ sights to formulate a plan. “Hmmm, I must get in there, but how?” He looks at the edges of the castle and walks around the edge of the forest cover to locate any opening. Just then he found a root cellar. And just his luck; it was unguarded. Why was it unguarded? He didn’t care. This is just what he was looking for to get into the castle and exact his revenge on General Gorno. He looks left and right to make sure no one was pacing around the castle on patrol. He then scurries over to the doors of the root cellar entrance, opens them, and proceeds to descend inside.

         Burbont looks around to find the exit from the root cellar to get into the castle further. The root cellar was stacked with many liquors and wine from areas he never heard of: most likely countries he conquered and made into trading routes. He finds the exit to the root cellar and looks through the window, seeing no one close by. He cautiously opens the door and looks both up and down the hallway. “Either I’m in a remote place of this castle, or the security here is severely lacking.” He closes the door and turned right down the hallway, hopefully leading closer to the ones he was after.

         After walking around the castle for a while, he made a realization about the castle interior; it was too big for its own good. “Damn it, why do castles like this have to be this large!?” he said. Unfortunately for him, he unconsciously shouted that out loud in spite of his frustration of this castle. The empty hallway—much to his dismay—carried his echo onward to who knows where. His face had a stunned look upon himself at what he just did, for now he could be discovered.

         And that’s just what happened.

         In a matter of moments, he heard the clanking of armor steps and iron weapons heading faintly his way. Panicked, he looked for a way out and found a door to an unknown room. Without hesitation, he rushes into the room to escape. Thankfully for him, he gets into the room before the first soldier made it around the corner. Unfortunately, he ran into a small closet with armor in it, and thus made more of a racket, drawing more attention to himself. Outside the room, the guard’s attention was directed to the armor closet. Improvising, he put on the simple armor as best as he can, just as the guard outside opened the door. It was some cheap armor, for—even though it looked metal—the armor couldn’t even absorb the impact of him stumbling onto the ground.

         “Hey, you, what were you doing in there?” Apparently, the guards didn’t realize that Burbont was the intruder in the armor. They thought he was some low recruit. Very low. Burbont got to his feet and saw that he was surrounded by seven soldiers. “Hey, private, did you hear a voice down here a moment ago?”

         “Umm…well…” Burbont was at a loss for words as he didn’t know how to respond to them.

         “Hey, commander,” one guard said to the commander of the group. “I’ve never seen this guy in the castle before. You think he’s a new recruit?”

         “Nonsense, the king is currently refusing new recruits at this time for his own reasons,” the commander exclaimed. The commander of the seven man group has a different kind of armor from the others, but the only obvious difference was the material; the others were in bronze while he was in silver armor. “You just heard what I said to my men, so explain yourself; why are you here?”

         “I’m…just a lowly private serving for…the king’s errands.” Whether or not the others were going to buy that petty excuse, Burbont could only hope so. The commander looked at him funny as to what to say to that answer. Burbont, looking at the commander’s expression, thinks that he’s not going to buy the excuse with the attitude in his voice that he used before, since it was all rigid and doubtful. He straightens his posture and addresses the commander again. “I’m a private that was recruited for the odd jobs of this castle in order to maintain man power for the castle defense.” His voice was more focused this time around.

         “Hmmm, hard to believe, but I’ll let it pass…if you answer a quick question for me,” the commander asked him. “We know we heard someone down here. Where did it come from?” Thinking fast, Burbont pointed down the hallway opposite of where the guards came from. “Ok private. Come on men, let’s move!” The five other guards went on ahead as Burbont proceeded to walk down in the opposite direction towards where the guards originally came from. As they vanished out of sight, Burbont made his move and ran off into the direction the guards came from.

         An hour must’ve passed after breaching the castle walls. As time passed, word spread of a possible intruder in the castle and security began to tighten up. The soldiers began to even question each other to see if the intruder has blended in as one of them. For Burbont, however, this—even though it could expose him—was actually slowing their pursuit in finding him as they were so busy in testing each other to see if one of the soldiers were fake. Through this gamble, and keeping out of sight, he finally made it into the main hall of the castle. The trip there was hectic, and knowing the castle was large from the outside didn’t help things.

         Staring down the main hallway, he sees rows of statues in a man’s image. He thought it was most likely who this King Revil guy was. The statues lined up the sides of the hall up to the end of the hallway. He began to head towards the end to reach the doors and accomplish his revenge. The castle guards were still looking through the castle, unaware that Burbont has breached deep into the confines of the castle. However—even though he was technically in the clear—whether he was too overconfident, or just mad with vengeance, one could only hope that somewhere in his mind, he kept the warning from the Holy Father into consideration. He gets to the grand doors to the throne room and forces them open.

         Inside however, a realization is made; he’s not in the throne room. The room looked no where near what a throne room looked like. The room had a dark aura around it and four large marble-finish pillars stood near each corner of the room. It was a pretty large room and seemed eerily silent in the room apart from all the chaos the guards of the castle were making. On the other side of the room, he saw another set of large doors, most likely leading to the actual throne room. As he took a step forward, his movement was stopped by two quick daggers, just missing his foot. Behind the two back pillars, two men emerged from the shadows and poised themselves in front of the doors. By seeing the two men together is when he noticed the silhouette of another person standing behind them, and what appeared to be carrying something on his back.

         Like a giant axe.

         “I don’t know how you got here,” the large silhouette spoke. His voice bellowed through the empty space of the room. “But don’t think you’ve fooled everyone here. Thinking that a lowly piece of scum like you could waltz in here, disguised in our armor, it’s pathetic. Our forces must be pretty laid back from lack of war to not see through you, intruder.” Burbont looks at the silhouette intensely while the man was talking. As he got a good look, he tried to match the large silhouette with the description that Gin gave him before on that fateful night:

“I was going to rest before the night patrol when this
unusually large man in red armor approached me.”

         Remembering that, he sees that the silhouette is, indeed unusually large and on closer inspection, was donning red armor, except for a helmet. He almost snapped the moment he realized this, as he now realized that this was the man that attacked his village. Also in that exact instant, he matched the image with the name that the Holy Father warned him about who was under King Revil and his right-hand man. He shouted in great rage and disgust, “General Gorno!”

         “What!? How does a random intruder such as yourself know who I am!?” Gorno steps out of the shadows, making himself present. He looked even more intimidating now that the shadows weren’t hiding his character. “If you’re smart, turn around, go out that door, and never come back!”

         “I think not! And as for how I know you, I found out that you were the one that attacked my village. So I traveled all this way to exact my revenge for burning my village and killing my parents!” He draws his sword with great haste.

         “Hmmm, you’ve got quite the determination there kid, but your blazing attitude tells me that you’re not a challenge to me. Boys, take care of this pest while inform the king about this!” The two men that were standing there from before were now standing at the ready to face Burbont.

         “Don’t get in my way you two,” Burbont leered at the two men.

         “Don’t think you’re going to escape our blades, for we, Razor and Edge, will stop you.”

         Burbont stared at their intro like they were making fools of themselves and wasting his time. “Cut the crap and let me through. Don’t think that you can beat me by having me outnumbered. You have no idea of my swordsman skills I’ve acquired.” Saying all he had to say, he chargd into the battle.


         Meanwhile, General Gorno was heading towards the throne room, which happened to be connected by another somewhat hallway. He storms through the doors to the throne room to alert King Revil of the intruder. “King Revil, forgive my intrusion, but I have urgent information to tell you.”

         “To barge in here unannounced, it better be good.” Revil’s tone was more on the level of calm, though you could tell he was angry. “Now tell me what your information is.”

         “My lord, the intruder has been located and my men are dealing with him as we speak.”

         “If so, then why did you bother to alert me of a problem that is soon to be dealt with!?” Revil felt that this info was a waste of time as his voice was slightly stressed.

         “Well, my lord,” he was startled by Revil at his anger. “I just thought that you should know. That was all.”

         “Enough.” Revil’s tone went back to the way it was before, basically hiding his rage as best as he can. “Bring me the intruder’s corpse from your men. They should be done with him by now, don’t you think?”

         “Ok, my lord. I beg your leave.” General Gorno walks towards the throne exit and walks through its doors.

         He walks down the hallway to head towards the next room where Burbont, Razor and Edge were battling. Knowing the skill of his subordinates, he envisioned that the battle was swiftly won and that he could bring the intruder’s corpse to King Revil. As he made it halfway down the hallway, he witnessed the unexpected. As the doors were forced open from the other side, he saw a lone silhouette of a man standing in his sights. As the man readied his sword, a gleam of reflective light revealed the identity of the man. It was Burbont, and he had already defeated General Gorno’s two men with very few injuries.

         “What, what is this?” General Gorno was stunned at the current predicament. “How can someone like you manage to defeat my two finest men!?” Burbont spoke not a word, as he was focusing his sword towards General Gorno. His rage started to surface. “You insignificant maggot, I’ll make sure that you die by my hands!” He places his right hand towards hid back, gripping the bar of his weapon; a huge axe. Despite its size, he was able to hold it with his right hand alone. The axe in question had an edge on both sides, and was relatively as big as his torso. The hilt of the axe was just as long. Despite holding it one-handed, he still used two hands when necessary, which he demonstrated as he brought his left hand to hold the axe as he slid his right hand to about two inches below the base of the axe and pushed some small button that un-seeable by most people.

         “Well, come on. Let’s settle this so my revenge will be complete!” Burbont begins to take a step towards General Gorno.

         “You’re too eager if you think you can take me on!” General Gorno brings his axe up into the air and then brings it down, but instead of the edge of the axe hitting the ground, the entire axe head detached and was flying towards Burbont’s direction while attached to a chain that was stowed within the handle of the axe. He sees the incoming axe heading in his direction and jumps backwards to avoid the axe as it makes contact with the ground.

         “What kind of weapon is that!?” Burbont was deeply stunned and amazed at such a weapon that General Gorno wielded.

         “I’m somewhat flattered that you are amazed by my weapon.” General Gorno then recoils the axe by pulling back on the chain it was attached to, reconnecting it to the handle of the weapon. “This is my unique weapon I designed for myself; the Axechain. Most people don’t even realize that my weapon can go from close range to long range in an instant, so they’re mostly killed in the first strike. You must be some kind of fighter to be able to see it in such a small window frame.”

         Burbont was in a serious, but silent awe as he witnessed the axe returning to the handle with ease. Then, he noticed something that seemed illogical as the recoil of the chain into the handle was completed; he withstood the impact of the axe returning to the handle with just one hand. “How can you stand your ground that firmly when the axe returns to your handle?”

         “You find it weird? Here’s the simplest reason as to why the recoil of my weapon doesn’t affect me: I’m that strong!” General Gorno brought up his axe up again to strike. Burbont dashes towards General Gorno as he unleashes his axe upon him. He avoids the axe by dodging to the right side as he continued running forward to attack. However, General Gorno pulls back on the axe’s chain in order to make it strike on the recoil. Burbont somehow manages to dodge the axe as he dodges to the right side again, but the edge of the axe nips at the side of the armor that he was wearing, and caused him to lose his balance slightly. As he got his footing, General Gorno struck again. Burbont barely managed to dodge to the left just as the axe hit one of the large pillars he was standing next to. He hits the ground as he didn’t completely have his footing. The axe was pulled from the pillar by the chain as it aimed towards him again. Unable to stand in time, he was forced to roll away in order to avoid the blade from hitting the ground just inches from where he was lying. He gets back up on his feet, standing back where he started on the other side of the room, as the axe is recoiled back towards General Gorno.

         “This is crazy,” Burbont said out loud to himself, but in a low audible level that no one could pick up. “I’m barely able to avoid his attacks from that…weapon. I’ve never seen such a weapon before, and I can’t seem to read its moves well enough to counterattack.”

         “You’ve done well to have survived this long, but there’s no way that you can hold out against me much longer.”

         “He’s right. I noticed myself that I was slowing down. I never had to fight this long. My stamina’s failing me.”

         General Gorno readied his axe. “It’s time for you to die!” But just then, the doors behind General Gorno opened suddenly. A silhouetted man appeared within the doorway. Burbont was curious on who the new person was, but General Gorno made it very apparent on who the silhouette was. “King Revil! Why are you here, my lord!?”

         “It’s a good thing I’m here,” Revil looks about the room to see the destruction caused by the two combatants. “Because it seems that you’re destroying my castle; and I don’t like that!” He looks up at General Gorno with unusually normal eyes, but he could see that Revil was deeply infuriated at what he has done. “I thought that I told you about using those techniques inside my castle walls. I know you’re prone to stop the enemy at any cost, but my castle isn’t one of them.”

         “My king, please forgive me!” As General Gorno was pleading for Revil’s forgiveness, Burbont noticed that their attention was drawn away from him. Quietly, he picked up his sword and began to walk silently towards General Gorno in attempts to stab him somewhere vulnerable. But as he got close and prepared to strike, his movement was stopped. Some force was binding his body from moving.

         “What’s this? I can’t move!” Burbont said trying to get his body to move.

         “You. If I had to judge you, I’d claim you to be smart, and stupid,” Revil spoke out to him.

         “Why’s that?”

         “Smart, since you tried to strike my General while is attention was drawn away from you.”

         “And, why also claim me as stupid?”

         “Isn’t it obvious? I can see you attempting it, fool!”

         Burbont was still trying to fight the unseen force that was binding him. “Ugh. You must be King Revil, aren’t you?”

         “So, you know my name, though I’m sure that’s all you know. So, tell me, what is the name of this intruder that I see before me?

         Burbont knew that he was referring to himself. “I’m Burbont.”

         “I see. Well, Burbont, I’d ask you some questions, but it turns out that you caught me at a bad time, and in an even worse mood.” He releases his binding spell from Burbont. “Now leave, and never return.” He turns towards General Gorno, signaling him to wait in the throne room for him. As they both started to walk away, Burbont made one final attempt to exact vengeance, instead of running away. He swung his sword, but some sort of dark energy stopped him, and then enveloped his entire being. It was Revil’s powers that were doing this, and he conjured it without even looking at his target. He commanded the dark aura to lift Burbont off of the ground. He the turned himself around and spoke to Burbont in a much fiercer tone. “Fool. If you won’t leave now, you’ll leave by force!” With a thrust of his hand, he launched Burbont out through the doors of the room, still enveloped in the darkness. As if on command, the doors opened for the darkness, and proceeded to do so for two more sets of doors, until he reached the castle gate doors.

         If one were to look from outside the castle gates, they would see Burbont flying as fast as a diving Halknor. The dark aura engulfing him disappeared just as he hit the ground. Too bad the ground wasn’t softer, because the impact looked harsh enough to have caused serious injury. He bounced across the ground twice at that speed until he hit a nearby bush, stooping his movement, and cushion the impact. He couldn’t resist the immense pain, and after giving a faint groan, he blacked out.

         Meanwhile, the castle guards in the castle were organized again after the chaos that was started by Burbont’s intrusion. Every guard was now at their respective posts. In the throne room General Gorno was in the presence of King Revil, waiting for what punishment he may receive this time.

         “Please forgive my actions, my king. I was…only trying to expunge the intruder.” General Gorno was down on his knees, but maintained his composure in front of Revil. Revil was silent for a bit as to take in his forgiveness and what to do about it.

         “…Alright, I’ll let this go. We have more pressing matters to attend to anyhow,” he finally answered. General Gorno rose from the floor as Revil continued to speak. As he was finishing up, General Gorno raised a question.

         “What do you think of that intruder we had?” he asked him.

         “I’m not concerned with him,” Revil responded. “Being thrown like that should have killed him, or cause him to die from internal bleeding.” Revil then turned towards General Gorno directly. “Anyway, he’s shown a fault in our defense.”

         “Don’t worry; I’ll whip the guards back into shape so it doesn’t happen again.”

         “That would work, but I believe I have a better idea.” Revil actually gave a small grin.

         “How so, my king?” General Gorno was wondering what Revil had planned.

         “I’ve been reading the archives, and with my power, I’ll make sure no intruder will ever breach our walls again.” Revil walks over to his throne and grabs a book that was sitting next to it on a table. He brings it over to General Gorno and opens the book, showing him a powerful spell. “With this spell, I will conjure up a magical barrier preventing outside entry.” He then points to the lower right of the page that he was currently reading. “And over here, I will make a device that will allow only our men to move freely through the barrier.”

         “That sounds ingenious, my king.” General Gorno complimented. Revil then put down the book and then pulled out a small dagger from his pocket. Then he put out his left hand above the book and looked towards General Gorno.

         “General Gorno, put out your hand.”


         The sun was beginning to set, at this point setting the horizon sky ablaze in a beautiful reddish hue. Nearby the castle grounds, Burbont was regaining consciousness from the earlier incident of being hurled from the castle. He struggled a bit in the bush, but he was still feeling some pain.

         “Ugh, oooh, ouch. What power. I’ve never thought such strength could exist.” Burbont looks at himself to calculate how bad his injuries were. “Strange, besides some pain, I thought I was a dead man.” He decided to save the search for an explanation for another time as he struggled to get himself out from inside the bush. Getting his senses back in order, he looks at the castle again, and in anger, picks up a small rock and throws it. The rock hits the edge of the newly raised magical shield and disintegrates. “Whoa, when did that shield get there!?” He was silent for a bit thinking about the current situation; he was pretty beat up, and now the castle is inaccessible. “Sigh, no point staying here. I should head back.”

         With the strength he had left, and his grandfather’s sword, Burbont paces himself carefully as he walked away from Revil’s castle. As he walked, he exclaimed; “I’m not finished. I will have my vengeance.”