Chapter 1: Atop a Cliff - 1/?

Godfrey sat upon Jonesse, the Southern Thoroughbred gifted to him by his father on his fifteenth birthday.

The great horse whined and shifted from side to side, uneased by cannon fire in the distance.

He ran his fingers through the dark-hazel mane of Jonesse before unknowingly ending up in a hard clutch of horsehair, which he, after realising, promptly let go in fear of injuring the creature.

‘I’m sorry,’ Godfrey said under his breath.

The horse paid no heed, instead stopped its weaving, and stared far off into the valley. Godfrey tried to follow his gaze, but got lost somewhere in between the organised chaos unfolding beneath the cliff and the winding valleys near the horizon, to which Jonesse was fixated on.

What Godfrey saw from atop that cliff had been his life for the last two years – a great city, surrounded, its rivers dammed off by the sieging Reautish, its entrances bulwarked with what the defenders could muster in time, and unmanned fires raging as high as the clouds in the abandoned sectors of the city.

He witnessed the constant rotation of thirty-thousand men in between the front and reserve lines, ceaseless cannonade and incendiary mortar fire being poured onto the city, and futile attempts at breaking through from either side of the siege.

The otherwise beauty of the valley in its sorrowful state was quite unmatched, being miles inland, it was entirely untouched by the invasive flora the East Coast brought about the peninsula.

Seas of wild Gilstem prairies painted the earth, divided by the meandering roads and rivers that led to the city.

The westerly brought through the valley brushed past the prairie, forming waves that cut through the great siege towers, the guns, the miles of military encampments before finally finding Godfrey’s soft, flaxen hair – If not for the spectacular siege unfolding before him, he would have noticed.

What held Godfrey’s attention was today’s attempt at a break through, for his father, Henrik, the king of Reautland, had accompanied his troops down to the city ramparts.

Godfrey had watched his father parade through all seven miles of land that the encampment stretched through, with his heavy cavalry in tow.

There was always pride in Godfrey’s eyes as he watched his father march down to battle, as his men cheered for him, as the drums roared and his house colours flew.

This was oftentimes followed by a sense of inevitable dread, images of his father being brought back on a stretcher, or being hoisted off the city walls as a war trophy, fates he had seen many others suffer.

Godfrey spent a great deal of his time atop that cliff pondering his reaction to his father’s death, he imagined himself holding fast, his head high, his expression cold, to show strength to the surrounding generals.

But most of all, he found himself reminiscing times long past, summers spent on his father’s ship on the Eastern Coast, learning to swim in the warm sea, standing on his father’s knees as he panicked when he couldn’t find ground with his feet, then falling asleep on his father’s lap as he worked on stately matters.

His father, Henrik, was never much of a conqueror, instead preferring the comforts of his study, on the southern wing of the palace, where he forbade even Godfrey enter.

Most tasks were delegated to his statesmen and generals. When it did come time for Henrik to perform his regal duties, he was always fair, he was always swift, and he was always loved.

No one really knew where his unprovoked obsession with uniting the peninsula arose, some theorized he felt the need to achieve greatness before he withered away, but some thought he had simply gone mad.