"Greetings fellow travelers!", said the Minstrel heartily.  "The
story I have for you tonight is an interesting one at that.  It is the
story of a man who was once called Sir Kaladorne.  The story begins many
decades ago. . .

í       í       í       í       í       í       í       í

        In a small village names Mhorimar, centered around a great botanical
garden, there lived a Knight that was rumored to be one of the finest
swordsmen in the land, but had given up fighting for some unknown reason,
maybe reasons.  His name was Cedric Ferral, and he was now the keeper of the
garden.  He had a deep love for the woods and forests and the tranquility
therein, so he took his job very seriously.

        Eventually, he got married, and had identical twin sons, but tragedy
is stranger to no man, and his wife died while giving birth.  Cedric named
his sons Kaladorne and Delvorem, and they had a good life there in the
village.  When the twins were about the age of 8, Cedric kept the vow he had
made to his father when he was on his death bed, and began to teach them how
to fight with a bastard sword.  The only thing the Ferral family had that
was its own, was its sword style.  Although Cedric was teaching them how to
fight, he was also trying to teach them that violence solves very few of the
problems they will face in adult life.

        When the twins were 16, a necromancer was roaming the countryside
with a small force of Assassins and Mercenaries looking for fresh corpses
for experiments and spells and the like.  Their plan was simple enough.
Find some weak people and kill them.  They were heading directly for the
village of Mhorimar, and they didn't know it.

        That first night they neared the village, someone from the village,
a young man that couldn't sleep and was wandering about the garden, noticed
many campfires and decided to alert the rest of the village to it right away.
He immediatley went to the village elder's, and waking him up, told him what
he had seen.  The village elder thanked him, and told him to go to all the
houses that had men of at least 16 years and wake them for a meeting.  The
young man wasted no time, for in 5 mins all the men of Mhorimar were
gathered in the garden.

        The village elder spoke, "Young Michael has noticed many campfires
along the northern hill, about a days ride from Mhorimar.  If it is a war
party and they intend to pass through our village, they may try to take
supplies from us, maybe even go after the woman of the village for obvious
reasons.  We can't let that happen.  My advice to you all is to go back home
and get as much sleep as you can, and at dawn tomorrow meet here with
whatever you have to defend your home, family, and village if the need should
present itself."

        Cedric and his sons returned home, Cedric with an uneasy feeling, and
the twins with an anxious feeling.  But such is youth, quick to act, slow to
think.  Cedric feel asleep, and began to dream, as did his sons, of the
impending meeting with whatever was headed this way.  Cedric's dreams were
filled with horrible thoughts of gore and destruction.  The dreams of his
sons, however, were filled with them gallantly defeating some vicious
spawn of the abyss.

        On the morrow, Cedric awoke in a cold sweat.  He had seen his death
in his dreams.  When he had risen, he heard the song of swordplay outside his
house, and rushed to see what was happening.  To his comfort, it was only his
sons practicing with each other, the scabbards of their swords strapped onto
the blades with a leather thong, as he had taught them.  After another five
minutes, they all travelled to the garden, bastard swords in hand, and waited
for everyone else to show up.

        When they had gotten there, Cedric sat his boys down, and began a
small fatherly speech, "Sons, you've got to remember that fighting is the
best thing to do only when it is the last thing to do.  Every time you draw
your sword to face a foe, there is always a chance that you won't live to
replace it in it's scabbard.  Keep that in mind today."  After the speech,
by the looks on their faces, it looked as though his words had hit home
with them.

        In a few moments, the rest of the men started walking to the
garden, the elder among them.  In their hands were the implements of war,
different swords, daggers, hammers, one man was even carrying a Zwei-Hander.
A huge blade of about six and a half feet in length, and about four and a
half inches wide, the kind of weapon made for cutting human bodies in two.

        The elder began to speak once again, "When the riders come, do not
make any action toward them unless they are unmistakably hostile.  The best
we can do is to not provoke them."  With that, he gestered to the border of
the village, and the group began to move.  It was there that they waited for
a few hours.  Finally, the band of riders came into view.  It appeared to be
20 mounted men on white war horses, and one one black robed rider on a
black war horse.  Odd though, they weren't charging the town, they were
slowly riding in.

        When they were about one hundred yards out, only the robed one
continued to the town.  He rode right up to the elder, and began to speak,
"Greetings, gentle people.  How many people live in your village?"

        "Only about thirty men, women, and children."

        "Good, that means you'll be an easy kill."  With that, he began
laughing loudly and the other riders began advancing, drawing their
weapons.  The robed man stopped his laughing, and pointed a finger at the
village elder.  The elder suddenly fell over, his heart stopped forever, and
the robed man began laughing even more loudly.  It was now that the men on
horseback had closed enough distance to begin attacking the village.

        They rode directly into the ranks of the men assembled just outside
the village.  Viciously swinging at anything that got in their way.
Already about five of the men from the village had fallen.  The only ones
that weren't expressing fear were Cedric and his sons.  One rider rode
directly toward him, but he parried the blow, and kept the momentum of the
parry going into a powerful swing that took that rider's right leg clean
off at the thigh.  He went down screaming and was quickly dispatched by
another member of the village.

        "Get them off their horses!  That's our only chance!" screamed
Cedric.  Hearing that, people began rushing the horses from the sides in
hopes to throw the riders off, and it worked.  While one or two people from
the village distracted a rider, another one or two would rush the horse
from a side and catch the rider off gaurd.  This process wasn't without
fault, however, as another five men from Mhorimar had lost their lives in
unhorsing a few riders.

        Once they were on the ground, the tide of battle seemed to even
out, although the raider wearing robes had gotten into the village and was
running rampant through it, killing all within his line of sight, pointing
his finger and giggling merrily as people dropped dead, just as the elder
had.  Cedric now faced two raiders at once, and was winning.  Delvorem
managed to catch a glimpse of his father out of the corner of his eye, and
silently thanked the powers that be for such a great father.

        Kaladorne and Delvorem had their hands full as well.  Each had been
fighting the same raider for about ten minutes now, and while they got
their blades wet, so did the raiders they were holding off.  Delvorem had
suffered a slash across his chest that would be with him for the rest of
his life, and Kaladorne also had suffered a slash wound, but his was much
more disfiguring.  The raider had gotten a lucky blow and the tip of his
long sword had opened a neat section of Kaladorn's face.  A clean vertical
line on the left side of his face, over his eye.  Luckily for him, the
blade managed to miss his eye, leaving him sight on that side.

        At last, they managed to best the warrior they were fighting, only
to have another two of the raiders take their place.  This next battle was
too much for Delvorem, and only a few feet from his brother, he fell to a
blow across his leg, and as he lay on the ground clutching at the bleeding
wound, he was smitten from behind by a hammer, and never got up.  This only
fueled the fire for Kaladorne.  Now was not the time for grief.  If he let
his mind become clouded with thoughts of pain, he might end up like his
brother.  He began to berate his assailant with slashes, thrusts, and
hacks.  Putting a second hand on his blade, he began working his sword with
a passion he didn't think was possible.  This sudden onslaught took the
raider by surprise, and Kaladorne's next overhead-cleave hit home on top of
the raiders head.  He had been wearing a helmet, but the sword went straight
through it.  Kaladorne pulls his bastard sword from the twisted mass that was
once a human head, and screamed mighily as the blood spray from the still
pulsing arteries flew at least 2 feet into the air.

        It was at that moment that Kaladorne heard his father screaming for
help.  He immediatly began running around, dodging swings, looking for his
father.  As he rounded the corner of a house, he saw his father fall to his
knees and then over.  A little more around the corner, and he saw the cause
of his father's death had been the robed man, as he laughed pointing his
finger, killing anything that got in his way with his twisted magic.  This
proved too much for Kaladorne's will, so he ran back to his house, and hid
under his bed, with the only door into the house barred.

        He listened to the what remained of the village populace get
slaughtered, and eventually, hours later, they had apparently been
searching the houses and got to his.  Finding the door barred, they
natually assumed someone was hiding inside, and began telling him they
wouldn't hurt whoever was inside.  Trying to convice him that they were
going to take him as a slave, but they'd leave him his life.  Seeing so
much killing out there today, he knew they were speaking lies.  He sat in
the corner of his room, holding his bastard sword.  The only thing he would
remember was the way his father and brother fell to the wishes of the black
robed man.

        At that moment, there was a thunderous crash, and he knew they had
finally broken the door down.  They systematically searched the house, and
after about five minutes found Kaladorne's place of hiding.  They dragged
him out of his house, and held him before the robed man.  He stood over
Kaladorn as his raiders were holding him down, and began to speak.

        "You should be proud.  I saw you fighting, you felled two of my
trained warriors, for your age, you possess quite an amount of sword skill.
You also possess a bit of intelligence.  You were the only one smart enough
to run when you knew the odds were against you.  Hahahaha, judging from the
look on your face, you think yourself a coward for hiding.  I think you
smart.  I will grant you one boon, smart boy, you have ten seconds to name
it."

        Kaladorn almost immediatly, called out sarcastically, "Bring all
the people you killed today back to life!"

        The robed man stroked his beard a few times, and said calmly, "That
would take some doing, but isn't impossible."

        The tension in Kaladorne's muscles allieviated, and he replied, "You
mean you really CAN do that?"

        "Yes, dear boy.  But an expenditure of power that great would
require a heavy toll."

        "Which is?" said Kaladorn, starting to shake with fear.

        "Your life will become mine, you will become mine to shape,
manipulate, and control.  You were taught well by someone how to use that
sword my raider holds," and he gestured to one of the men holding Kaladorne
down, "and you do have a bit of smarts.  Also, I will not bring all back to
life, only two, so choose wisely.  Do you agreSAUCE00'kaladorne - part 1'               Executioner         Blade               19950323œ/
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