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Chapter 1 – The Scent of Iron and Rain-Soaked Stone
The Free City of Varnholt, under the shadow of the Ironspike Mountains, winter of the Year 1247.
Rain lashed the crooked streets like a thousand whips. The cobbles ran black with soot, blood, and the eternal filth of a city that had never known peace.
In the narrow throat of Butcher's Alley, beneath the dripping eaves of the Crooked Crown tavern (a place where men drank ale brewed with their own tears), sat Tomas "Tomi" Salazar upon an overturned wine barrel. Twenty-seven winters old, hair cropped short and bleached pale as bone by lye and sun, a ragged scar cleaving his left brow—a memento from the day a lord's man tried to blind him and failed.
The low quarter knew him by three truths, spoken in order of dread:
His hand never trembled when steel must taste flesh.
He repaid every debt, be it silver, blood, or honor.
When Tomi whispered, "This I shall mend myself," wise men looked away and prayed.
For three hours he had waited in the downpour, cloak heavy with water.
Not for the merchant who owed him coin.
For the man who owed him fealty.
Hooves clattered on wet stone.
A black destrier in barding of midnight iron rounded the corner, followed by six mounted men-at-arms bearing the crimson wyrm banner of House Maldonado.
The column halted ten paces away. Rain drummed on helms and shields.
Tomi continued to draw slowly on a thin reed pipe, the ember glowing like a dying eye.
Fifty heartbeats passed in the storm.
The lead rider dismounted.
Lord Aarón "the Rey" Maldonado stepped forward, rain streaming from the edges of his sallet helm. Beneath the steel, a face carved from arrogance and old murders—thirty-eight winters, eyes the color of wet slate. His mail was chased with silver thread, cloak lined with sable worth more than the lives of the men watching from shadowed doorways.
"I warned thee, Salazar," the lord's voice carried over the rain, smooth as oiled steel. "This quarter, these streets, these souls—they kneel to one banner. Mine."
Tomi exhaled a final plume of smoke, let the pipe fall into a puddle, and met the lord's gaze.
"You speak true, my lord…
they did kneel to one banner."
Silence fell, heavier than the rain.
Aarón's mouth curved in the smile of a man who has already written the epitaph of his enemy.
"And now?" he asked. "To whom do they bend the knee, cur?"
Tomi rose slowly. He drew a small horn from beneath his cloak, lifted it, and blew one low, mournful note.
From every alley, every broken window, every rooftop and shadow, they came.
Twenty-three figures.
Not a great host.
But each bore the mark of Maldonado's cruelty: a father hanged for a poached hare, a sister sold to the pleasure houses, a brother's hands struck off for stealing bread, a lover burned as witch because she dared refuse a Maldonado knight.
Tonight their faces were painted black with soot and pitch.
A single thick line of charcoal drawn across the eyes.
They looked less like men and more like the vengeance of the city itself given flesh.
Lord Aarón turned his head slowly. The smile withered.
Tomi stepped forward through the rain.
"I came not for coin this night, Rey.
I came for the crown."
A quarrel hissed from the darkness above—an unseen crossbowman perched on the tavern's crooked chimney.
The first shaft punched through the visor slit of the lord's standard-bearer. The man toppled from the saddle without a sound.
A second quarrel.
The captain of the guard. Through the gorget. Blood sprayed black in the torchlight.
The remaining men-at-arms drew steel—but too late.
The black-faced twenty-three closed like a noose.
Lord Aarón stood alone now, rain mixing with the spreading crimson on his fine surcoat.
Tomi walked until only an arm's length separated them.
"I shall not slay thee this night, Aarón Maldonado.
Not yet."
He lifted one hand. The soot-eyed ghosts stilled as stone.
"I grant thee ninety days of breath.
In ninety days I shall hold every keep, every toll-gate, every oath that once answered to thee.
And when that day dawns…
either I shall bend the knee before thee,
or thou shalt kneel before me…
and I will ask thee this single question:
the headsman's axe, or the oubliette?"
Aarón spat blood upon the stones (the quarrel had torn a furrow across his shoulder).
"And what name shalt thou claim, boy, when all this is thine?"
For the first time that night, Tomi smiled—a smile cold as mountain frost, sweet as poison.
"King of Power, my lord.
Carve that name deep into thy heart…
for in ninety days
every tongue in Varnholt shall speak it upon their knees."
He turned and strode away into the storm.
Behind him the twenty-three shadows melted back into the alleys, as though the night had swallowed them whole.
Only Lord Aarón remained in the center of the street,
cloak sodden, shoulder bleeding,
and for the first time in fifteen years of rule…
truly afraid.
End of Chapter 1
Shall we continue with Chapter 2 in this medieval setting, or would you like to adjust the tone, kingdom, or any details? ⚔️