The Order of the Wolf: a Short Story

IV

  The blackness melted away, slowly sinking back into the shadows until Rowan was raw as dim light shone down upon him.

He shifted his body, but it ached with pain. On the far wall, only a few feet from him, was an old torch, barely giving the room light. Not that there was much to shine on, anyways.

Rowan was lying on a "mat" that simply consisted of a metre long burlap sack. Three walls of the room were hard stone and the other rusty metal bars.

Of course he was in a prison, he'd attacked a guard. What did it matter if he'd had a close relationship with King Ulfur and Queen Jacquelyn?

Curious, his trembling hand raised to his ear. A sloppy bandage had been placed there to cover his wound, and Rowan was afraid it'd come off if he touched it anymore.

"Excuse me? Is there anyone here? I require answers," he asked to no one, for there followed no reply.

At least, not at first. For hours he laid on the scraps that created an excuse for a bed, not making a noise, as his aching body would not permit him.

"I'm not surprised you're in prison," said a voice suddenly. Rowan shot up and groaned.

"What do you mean?" He moaned.

"I mean Malum is an evil man. It doesn't matter what you do. If he doesn't like you, you'll be thrown in the dungeons."

"How do you know such things about the royal advisor, and why do you speak them so freely?" Asked Rowan. He watched as a man in green robes stepped into the light outside his cell. It was a prison guard, of all things.

"Around the time Malum was first appointed as advisor a few moons ago, I found out too much about him. I had been a royal knight in the court. In fact, you'd probably have heard of me," said the prison guard. Rowan hadn't been in prison before, but he assumed all guards weren't as free to conversation like this one.

"What did you find out about him?" Asked Rowan as he twisted his ring on and off his finger.

"His past, and his plans for the future," said the guard, leaning down to face his prisoner. "Malum isn't an ordinary man; he's a sorcerer." Rowan didn't say anything to this for two reasons. 1) he didn't know what to say, and 2) he wished to hear more. "He was trained by Merlin himself, but he wasn't the only one. King Ulfur was also an apprentice of the great sorcerer."

"So they both knew each other?"

Nodding, the guard said, "At first they were friends, companions. But it changed when Ulfur was crowned king. Malum had to receive his revenge somehow, but he knew Ulfur was a regenerate, a person who, if killed, would just return."

Just as the Order of the Wolf believed, thought Rowan.

The guard continued, "So Malum put a curse on him, binding him into a form that could keep him silent forever, even to all eternity." He paused, took a breath, and uttered another sentence. "That is all that he knows I know, but there is more I have not yet revealed to have knowledge of."

"What?"

"Malum, he has a necklace." The necklace. Of course. He grew angry as a boar when my sword touched it. It must serve some purpose. "It has the capability to control the minds of others. There are two I know he is controlling. King Maximialian, and King Ulfur.

"If Malum knew I was aware of this I surely would be dead, for that is why I am speaking such words to you now. Another besides myself must hear them." By now the guard was sitting on the outside of the cell, his legs crossed in a nonchalant fashion. "I believe Malum has been tricking King Maximilian to do his bidding. He is also using it to contain Ulfur and keep him from escaping his bonds."