Okay, I really like the new character that shows up in this chapter. And look… she isn’t even a princess… there are no princesses in this chapter at all… but I have a feeling that before too long, she is going to meet up with my crew of kick-ass princesses… and maybe they will make her an honorary princess.

(Remember, you can read the entire story… well, what I have written so far, without these annoying interruptions, by clicking the button on the top bar called: The Seven Kingdoms. Also, about four of you have submitted your names to be included in the book as a character, and there is still time to do that. I am going to need lots of character names, and one of them might as well be you, right?)

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The Seven Kingdoms

Chapter 8

Sanara Trist held tightly to her father’s hand as they made their way through the crowd. She was very excited to be away from the daily farm chores and come to Dancertown to see the Skull king on his official visit to the island. She had seen her own king a number of times, but this was something new. She was a little confused by the mood of the crowd. She was expecting people to be happy and excited about this unusual occurrence, and a chance to do something different than they normally did.

But instead, the people seemed angry. They stood about in groups, talking very seriously, and no one looked happy at all. She heard people mentioning the Skulls quite a bit. She also heard more bad words than she heard the time her father had accidentally stuck his pitchfork into some breadgrass and the big toe of his left foot had gotten in the way.

Her father was as baffled as she was. “I know where we can find out what is happening,” he told her as he led her to a shop that sold farm tools.

The very large and very jolly proprietor greeted her father like an old friend. “Toman Trist, don’t tell me you broke another scythe. Or are you just here to get a look at our royal visitor?”

“I promised Sanara she could see him,” her father told him. “What do I care about a king who has never set foot on our soil and most likely never will again? But why is everyone so worked up about the Skulls?”

“I guess you don’t get much news out your way,” the shop owner said with a smile. “The Skulls have been up to no good.” He went on to tell the tale of princess Hildread’s confrontation with a Skull prince, her flight from the kingdom, and the subsequent invasion of Halfmoon. He also shared the rumors of the princess of Middle fleeing her own marriage, only to have it passed on to her younger sister. “It seems the young girl’s parents were none too happy about it, and the Skulls more or less took the whole place over, one way or another,” the proprietor finished.

“Well, it’s no business of mine,” Sanara’s father replied. “I’d like to see them try something like that here, though. Our boys would give them a thumping, that’s for certain.”

Sanara was growing bored with all this talking. “Let’s go up to the castle and see if we can get a spot in the great hall, Papa. I want to see the Skull king. He sounds perfectly horrible.”

“Yes, well, a child should see a few kings in their lifetime,” her father said to the shop owner, smiling indulgently at his daughter. “A royal visit is a rare enough thing, no matter who that royalty turns out to be.” And with that, he led Sanara back out onto the street, and they threaded their way through the crowd and up the hill to the castle. It wasn’t easy to squeeze their way into the great hall, but her father was a large man, and they managed it.

They had just found a spot in front of one of the fireplaces that were spaced along the walls of the hall when the crowd all at once ceased their babble and silence descended. Sanara’s father reached down and picked her up, placing her on his shoulders so she could see the Skull procession entering.

King Nornan Vardigo Skull was a huge man in every way. He was taller than average and rounder than anybody she had ever seen in her life. He had a pale face that was also round, and Sanara giggled when it occurred to her that his huge, white, hairless head, perched on top of his huge, round, black-clad body, looked a little like a moon rising over a night-shrouded planet.

Trailing behind the king was a very tall, very thin man, completely covered in a long, black cloak with a hood. The long, black cloak and hood were completely covered with thin, white markings that looked like words written in an unknown language. Behind the mysterious thin man were thirty Skull soldiers led by a huge and very ferocious-looking captain.

The king of the kingdom of Skull stopped a few paces from the king of the kingdom of Dancer. The mysterious thin man stopped a pace behind him. The soldiers arrayed themselves in three lines with the captain off to one side. The king of Dancer, a widower, had his only son beside him. He stepped forward to greet his royal visitor.

Before either king had so much as spoken a word, a Dancer soldier burst into the great hall and rushed towards his king. He couldn’t get past the Skull soldiers because of the crowd of onlookers packed on either side. He was forced to stop behind the Skull soldiers. He obviously had something he wanted to tell the king, but there was no way he could do it without telling everyone in the great hall at the same time.

Oluff Halvard Dancer, the king to whom the man wished so badly to speak, was a kindly old soul with long, snow-white hair and a long, snow-white beard. He blinked in embarrassment at the interruption. “Yes, young man, what is it that you have to say that is so important that it can’t wait until I have properly greeted our important guests?”

“Sir,” the soldier stammered over the shoulders of the Skull soldiers between him and his king, “there is a fleet of Skull ships sailing into the bay.”

King Oluff was confused and shocked by this unexpected development. His eyes flicked to king Nornan. King Oluff was even more confused and shocked by what he saw in king Nornan’s eyes. This was no longer the same man he had met when they had both been young princes, chatting at various royal gatherings and weddings. This man had no compassion or mercy left in him. His eyes were the eyes of a predator. “What is the meaning of this?” he demanded in a voice that did not at all match his kindly features and friendly blue eyes.

King Nornan had a voice that perfectly matched his countenance, a deep, gravelly growl. “You don’t have a daughter for any of my sons to marry, so I have decided to forego subtlety, and just take your kingdom by force.” He made a gesture with one hand and the thirty Skull soldiers grabbed their blades and mounted them on their staves in quick, well-rehearsed movements. Likewise they lowered their spears and began to spread out into a crescent, passing around their king and the mysterious thin man, to advance on the king of Dancer and his son.

The crowd in the hall began to seethe. The men pushed the women and children back, herding them out through the various doors around the hall, but many of the men then turned back to aide their king. Some of them pulled knives from their own belts, used on fishing boats or around their farms, while others picked up cutlery from the long dining tables set for the royal banquet that was to have followed. Still others picked up chairs and other small bits of furniture, anything with which to do battle with the Skull soldiers.

King Oluff suddenly shouted, “soldiers, to me!” And from all the doors around the great hall appeared dozens of men, all carrying their staves and dressed in their armor. “Did you think me a complete fool?” he shouted at the Skull king. “Word of your misdeeds has come to us. I had hoped that you could be reasoned with, but I did not leave it solely to fate.”

The Skull troops found themselves heavily outnumbered and surrounded by both soldiers and an angry mob. They ceased advancing on the Dancer king and formed a circle around their own king and the thin man in black. King Nornan Skull realized that he had underestimated his opponent. “Back to the harbor,” he ordered his men, and they began to retreat back the way they had come, a shuffling knot of deadly iron spear points. None in the hall dared rush that ring of death.

When it had all begun to get out of hand, Sanara’s father had set her down and pushed her towards closest door, telling her to flee and not stop until she had reached the farm. Then he had turned back to join the mob of outraged citizens. But Sanara had not fled. She had stopped by the door, enthralled by this series of events. She watched as someone in the crowd threw a stool, which struck one of the Skull soldiers full in the face, knocking his leather helmet off and knocking him to the floor. This victory emboldened the crowd, and soon other objects were lofting through the air, crashing into the circle of soldiers.

Things were not looking good for the king of the Skulls and his men. The angry men of Dancer began edging closer, sensing that there might be an opportunity to rush their enemies. Then a most unexpected thing happened. Through the open doors towards which the cluster of Skulls were slowly making their way leaped a shadowclaw.

Everyone in the hall froze. No, that wasn’t quite true, Sanara realized. The Skulls continued their slow march towards the exit even as the ferocious beast passed around them in a slow, sinuous slink. Everyone was familiar with this now rare creature, the largest and fiercest hunter of the old forests. But this one was far larger than any that had ever been seen in living memory, fully as long as two men lying end to end, from the tip of its twitching tail to its fang-filled mouth. The long, thin body, covered in sleek gray fur with black splotches, rippled with coiled strength. The short but powerful legs moved the animal in an undulating glide. Black eyes glittered a challenge.

Sanara couldn’t understand how the Skulls could keep moving and not be terrified into stillness. Was this some trained beast that they had brought with them? But then she noticed a peculiar thing. She happened to glance at the mysterious thin man. He looked to be muttering to himself, and he was moving his hands about in strange patterns before him. Was he somehow controlling the shadowclaw?

The lithe forest-dweller made no move to attack any of the people in the hall, not did it make a single sound. It merely slunk back and forth in front of the slowly retreating ring of Skulls. Without thought, Sanara reached to the rope belt on her tunic and pulled her sling from it. With her other hand she reached into the cloth pouch that also hung there, and removed a stone. She was a deadly shot with the sling. She killed many hoppers on the farm, to keep the bouncy little varmints from the breadgrass. Her father’s bed as well her own each had a blanket made from the green and brown fur of hoppers, and many a meal on the farm included hopper stew. Once she had even killed a rooter that had strayed too near the farm, and even professional hunters who went into the forest after that prey, prized for its thick leather hides, found them to be hard to bring down. The rooter had fed her and her father for quite a while.

Sanara waited until the shadowclaw began to turn back on itself in its pacing, then, with a single swing, she let the stone fly. She knew before it hit that it was a good throw. But the stone passed right through the eye of the great beast and continued on to hit one of the Skull soldiers in the knee, dropping him in a sitting position to the floor. Sanara was stunned. The stone hadn’t slowed at all in its journey through what should have been the dense bone of the shadowclaw’s skull. And the shadowclaw gave no indication that it had even been aware of the stone.

The shadowclaw wasn’t real, Sanara realized. And then she wondered if perhaps the mysterious thin man was indeed controlling the creature, but in a much more mysterious manner than a man commanding a trained pet. And with that, she knew what she had to do. She placed another stone in her sling, swinging it once, at let the stone fly. It sailed right where she sent it, between the heads of two of the Skull soldiers and right into the side of the hood-covered head of the mysterious thin man. There was a loud thunk, audible to all even over the other noises in the great hall, and the thin man stopped, then dropped like a sack of grain.

The shadowclaw vanished without a sound.