The Seven Kingdoms

Hildy was in a foul mood and her words fought their way out past clenched teeth. “I don’t want to marry Prince Nardis Skull, Papa.” She emphasized her displeasure by swinging her staff at the side of his head. Despite the fact that this was a lighter training weapon and not her heavier rockwood staff used for war, if the strike had connected, as she half hoped it would, her father would have been laid low.

Fortunately, considering his size and age, her father was fast on his feet and a cagey warrior as well. He ducked his head, tipping it to the side, and his leather helmet absorbed most of the blow. “Hildread Starrgarrd Halfmoon,” the battle-scared veteran began, even as he sent his staff swinging at her left shin, “would you have us go to war with the kingdom of Skull?

Hildy leapt deftly over the low, sweeping attack, whirling her own weapon up and over to rap her father squarely but not too viciously on the top of his leather-bound head. She knew that the best way to beat him was to get him rattled, annoy him to the point where he lost his concentration for even a mere moment. The fact that she really didn’t want to marry the loathsome prince just proved a convenient topic to use for this ploy. However, as she landed lightly back on her feet, she suddenly became aware of the fact that her father was nowhere near as distracted as she might have wished, despite his using her full name.

Bentar Starrgild Halfmoon, ruler of the kingdom of Halfmoon, had never intended the sweep of his staff to catch his daughter off guard. There had been no power behind the swing, no follow-through, and he stopped his extended weapon precisely where he had planned to. He grinned mischievously at his daughter.

Hildy looked down and saw his staff tip between her ankles, thrust into the dust of the courtyard training field. Having just landed she had yet to regain her balance, and she had no time to counter his next move as he twisted at the hips and pivoted his staff to the left. Hildy felt her feet going out from under her. She landed hard in the dirt. Even as she fell she took one last swing at her father, getting no small amount of satisfaction out of giving him one last, resounding whap on the huge bicep of his right arm.

Her father reached down a massive hand to help her up, but the sparring wasn’t over by any means. “Why can’t you just ask the other kings for help if the Skulls want to bully us?” she asked reasonably. “They all like you. Nobody likes old Nornan Skull.”

“Your duty is clear enough, dear daughter,” her father replied morosely. “I am no happier about this than you are.”

She glared at him from under lowered brow. “Then you marry him,” she shot back, pausing only long enough to stick her tongue out at him before spinning and stalking rapidly away. She crossed the courtyard at a brisk pace and headed into the hallway that undercut one of the inner keep’s walls. So preoccupied was she with her anger that she nearly ran headlong into an approaching figure in the dim recesses of the hall. She stopped abruptly and found herself staring up into the face of the very man who was responsible for that anger. No, she corrected herself, not a man… that pasty, pallid face framed by the long, lank, black hair shared by all the Skull family, belonged to a boy… a spoiled, petulant little boy.

“Ah, Princess, I was hoping I might run into you,” he began with a smug smile.

Dressed as he was in the traditional black and white garb of his people matching the black and white of the parts of him she could see, he made for a confusing vision in the poor lighting. “I suppose you think that’s frightfully clever,” she countered.

“Now now, my dear,” he said in a placating tone, holding up both his hands defensively.

His hands looked to her like two pale, floating wraiths. “I’m not your dear,” she spat.

“Perhaps not yet,” he continued in an oozing whisper that set her teeth on edge and sent a chill up her spine. “But you soon will be. Perhaps you aren’t thrilled by this match, but have you considered the possibility that my father’s choice of a bride for me might not be my own first choice either? You are by no means the most beautiful princess in the seven kingdoms, in case you were unaware of that fact. Too many muscles for my taste, to be honest. A little too manly for most men, since you do seem to value forthright honesty. But I am willing to make the best of a bad situation.”

At that moment, the fact that they were alone together for the first time and in near darkness as well, seemed to get the better of him. His hands fell suddenly forward to roughly grasp her shoulders. Before she could frame a suitably outraged reply, he leaned forward and pressed his mouth to hers. She struggled to pull back and his grip tightened. She smelled his sour breath and felt his thin, worm-like lips writhing upon hers.

Her simmering anger exploded in a volcanic eruption. Without giving it a thought, she brought her right knee up hard into his groin. The black and white prince let out a stifled groan and collapsed in a black and white heap. She stood over him, quivering with rage, and for a brief moment she considered slamming the tip of her training staff into his face over and over again until he was dead, but his pathetic whimpering caused her stop even as she raised her weapon off the ground. The white-hot flame of her anger cooled, to be replaced with a growing horror.

She turned and ran, stopping for nothing, until she arrived at her private apartments. She threw some traveling clothes and a few personal things in a travel pack, grabbed her rockwood war staff from where it stood leaning in the corner, and threw on a hooded cloak. Pausing only long enough to grab her jewelry box and a small sack of coins and throw them in the pack on top of everything else, she bolted out the door.

Taking the least-used corridors and hallways, she left the castle through a door near the kitchens and, keeping her head ducked so that the hood of her cloak concealed her face, she passed out of the side gate. The guards didn’t even glance at her. Ten minutes later she was scouring the docks at the harbor, looking for any ship to take her anywhere. A quick bargain was made with the captain of a trading ship from Smilingman, and soon enough she was ensconced within a small cabin on the small ship. Less than an hour after that, from where she huddled on a tattered blanket on a small and uncomfortable bunk listening to the sounds of a ship getting prepared for sea, she felt the vessel tilt as the wind took her sails, and they were on their way to the open sea.

It was a short, one-day sail from the island kingdom of Halfmoon to the island kingdom of Middle, however, the capital city was located on the far side of the largest of the seven kingdoms. Hildy stood on the deck for hours, watching as the green plains and hills and jagged coastline passed them by. In the hazy distance she could see tall peaks covered in snow and cocooned in massive cloud formations. Windriders cast forth their mournful cries from above, and she delighted in watching their occasional swoops and dives as they hunted various sea creatures.

Her joy in the sights and sounds and smells of her journey were tempered with worry. She knew she had let her parents down and left them in a terrible predicament. She tried to console herself with the fact that her attack on her betrothed had been entirely spontaneous and well-warranted.

At last, long after darkness had fallen, she returned to her small cabin and, laying down on the uncomfortable bunk, she sought sleep that came only fitfully. She was awakened by the sound of the anchor chain slithering and rattling into the depths. She gathered her meager belongings and went up on deck. The short, stocky trader captain was preparing to go ashore to begin bargaining with the locals. He offered to share the small boat that his men were lowering into the water.

Hildy enjoyed the short voyage through the bustling harbor to the docks. The steady splash and pull as the four crewmen worked their oars, the plaintive calls of the windriders. Boats of all sizes with sails of all colors swung at anchor or scurried to and fro on various errands. She watched as Middletown grew ever larger. She had visited this place many times in her 17 years. The town, with its castle and keep looming above it on a small hill, was not unlike Halfmoontown. They were of like size, and both were busy ports built in a large, protective bay. In both places, large, stone warehouses and open-air trading markets clustered around the docks and piers, narrow streets between leading to the residential districts full of wood and stone houses rising two and even three stories in height.

The trader captain shot Hildy a cagey look. “The people of Middle look forward to the wedding of their princess in a few weeks time to one of the Skull princes,” he ventured noncommittally.

Hildy gave him an equally-noncommittal smile.

“The people of Halfmoon, it would seem,” the squat sailor continued, “will have to forgo the nuptials of their princess, that were to have taken place tomorrow.”

“Is that so?” asked Hildy, beginning to feel afraid.

“Rumors were flying around the docks like windriders,” the captain said with a wicked grin, “that the young princess put her knee to the prince’s bits and pieces when he attempted to express his… uh… feelings for her in, perhaps, too forward of a manner.”

Hildy looked down at the bottom of the little boat. “That hardly seems like a proper thing for a lady, whether princess or not, to do.”

The captain gave out a bellow of a laugh and slapped both his bare thighs. “It’s nothing less than I would expect from any of my six daughters in the same situation, by the old sea gods!”

Hildy glanced back up into the seafarer’s eyes but said nothing.

The captain fingered the orange border of his short tunic that signified, like the orange sails of his ship, that he and his crew were from the kingdom of Smilingman. “Our people have no love for those arrogant Skull princes that their father seems able to produce in endless supply, my Lady,” the man said quietly and seriously. “I wish you all the luck in the world on your journeys.”

And with that, the bow of the little craft touched gently against the dock.