The Crimson Prince： Awakening 44 Chapter 15: Jonathan's Gambi

"Does anyone have any questions?" Jonathan asked with a half smile on his face.

When he heard no voice, it was decided that it was time to move. He had long since stowed his basin back within his travelling pack. The last thing necessary was to set off to the gate.

The plan was fairly easy to grasp. When the group of four hundred moved into the city, the villagers would be placed in the center of the one hundred knights.

As the large force dispatched to the gates, he saw his ten men split into five man squads and part within the woods.

Jonathan could only a.s.sume that with Aremesis out of the city, he would only have his supporters stand guard on the city. Even if that were so, no one would suspect a large contingent of their own guard to be cause for worry.

The large cl.u.s.ter of men would serve as a distraction while a group of ten would be in the background knocking out the observing guards.

As they neared the gate, Jonathan counted out the two guards on each side of the large double doors. His contingent was just spotted as the ten knights stealthily knocked them out and dragged their unconscious bodies into the woods on either side of the entrance.

Four of the ten knights took the places of the guards and called up to the tower watch. "Open the gates, we have a prison transport!" He called out to the oblivious tower guard.

The man looked down from the tower which rose from the gate wall and motioned for the men on the inside to unlock the doors.

As the doors slowly opened to accommodate the large contingent of soldiers, the guard supervisor emerged from the other side with a four man force. Jonathan knew that the four men were meant to be a formality, just as he taught them all those years back. He had counted on the supervisor to be one of the men he trained, so he ensured his position was in the center of the civilians to mask his presence.

Christopher was the one who met the supervisor in front of the ma.s.sive formation. With a fist over his heart, he gave a formal bow. "Greetings to the watch of the guard." he said as he straightened back up. "We have a large number to be transported to the prison cells."

The supervisor returned the salute and looked over Christopher's shoulder. "This many for tax evasion?" he said with a whistle. "The king is going to have a field day with this one."

Christopher let out a hearty chuckle. "Well maybe a month in the cells will empty their pockets." he said as he looked over his shoulder.

"Oh no, I suppose you haven't heard the latest decree made by High Advisor Aremesis." The supervisor said with an exasperated look. "We now only take ten percent of the prisoners to the cells now."

Christopher's face went slightly pale. "What happens to the other ninety percent?" he tried to make his voice sound normal.

"We execute them of course." he said as if it were a normal day conversation. "There's an execution block within the prison cell. We allow the bodies to fester near the cells to ensure the cell mates learn to follow rules." he said with a wink.

Christopher returned a heartfelt smile. He would enjoy killing this one himself. "Then we Will take our leave and escort the prisoners ourself and don't worry," he added with a playful tone, "we'll make sure there will be plenty of blood.

As Christopher saluted the supervisor, he tried to walk through the small formation when a hand stopped him. "I wasn't done yet." the supervisor said. Christopher instantly stiffened as he felt the atmosphere change within the man before him. "You would know that if you weren't so out of practice in courtesy." he said as he placed himself in front of Christopher.

"I don't understand your meaning, I have only been gone a week and I do believe I rendered proper courtesy by saluting you." Christopher said as he stared the man in the eye.

"Though I'm sure you noticed I didn't return the salute, nor did I end the conversation." The supervisor said as the group of four surrounded Christopher.

"Maybe we should have you join the prisoners for a little bonding time while we line them up at the chopping block." The supervisor said as the guards seized Christopher by the arms.

"The rest of you follow me to the prison!" He barked at the rest of the knights who had the prisoners in tow.

Jonathan tensed only for a moment until the man said follow him. If it was a secluded area, he could easily take him and the guards out before they could do any harm to the villagers or Christopher. Acting before they were there wouldn't do anything more than alert More guards.

The gate supervisor took the lead while the hundred strong formation herded the villagers behind.

Through the gate, Jonathan took in the familiar surroundings. Stone buildings three stories tall surrounded them as they were led down the winding carriage wide path.

Looking around, there were some differences that seemed out of place since the last time he travelled to Ebonhart. The path was nit dirt as he remembered, instead it was a fine smoothed stone path. There were lanterns on street posts as well. Jonathan raised an eyebrow as he started seeing wooden benches lining the wide trail.

It wasn't just the surroundings within the walking area that surprised him, but also the lack of people to fill the streets. Every once in a while they came up to a group of three or four villagers which of course flattened themselves against the edge of the road and saluted the officer which pa.s.sed them.

Taking a closer look at the people they were pa.s.sing, Jonathan noticed something quite off. The men and women saluted out of what should have been respect, but he only saw fear in their eyes.

The city itself seemed to transform in front of Jonathan. Instead of the many market stalls he had once seen in his last visit, there were now business buildings within the path that led to the castle. With all of the upgrades here it's surprising there isn't anyone around to cater to. He thought as he moved along with the crowd of men and women.

After close to a half an hour the group found themselves at yet another gate which led to the castle. If nothing else, it seemed as if Aremesis had become paranoid in his bout of power. Jonathan remembered the castle being free to the public while the king had still been in charge of his own kingdom. Now it seemed as though the place had been placed on high alert indefinitely.

One, two, Jonathan's eyes darted to the top of the wall, three, four, there were groups of knights patrolling the upper portions of the wall as they walked through the gate. When they were through the archway, Jonathan sighed. This may be more difficult than I previously expected. He thought as formation after formation pa.s.sed him. By the look of it, there were at least four hundred strong just walking the castle grounds.

Looking around, it seemed like the prison was still within the castle, which seemed to be a blessing. The barracks had been moved to a much larger building off to the side of the castle though. It made sense, whatever Aremesis did within the castle would want to be kept from even the guards.

The towering castle stood in front of them, shadowing the large group in front of it. Jonathan looked to the villagers who surrounded them. Their faces had all gone pale as they looked up at the looming building with complete hopelessness within their eyes. He remembered a time when they would have smiled as they saw the king come out to the court balcony to greet his people with his family.

So much had changed, it was hard to believe that Ebonhart was the same place he knew from all those years back. He listened to what was going on around him carefully. The sound of swords meeting struck his attention. He looked to the side of the castle and noticed a circle of knights with two in the middle sparring. Of to the right of them was a line of knights notching arrows in their boss as they took sight of their practice targets. It seemed as soon as the arrows were notched, they left the goes without more then a seconds hesitation. He looked at the targets and noticed that most of them had hit the red within the straw targets.

Jonathan remembered back in the day when children laughed and played in the same courtyard. Their parents would sit by the trees and watch while their sons and daughters played within the sage and watchful sights of the Crimson Knights.

If what Jonathan remembered of the previous conditions to the kingdom were considered colorful and lively, this new kingdom seemed black and depressing as if it were a place for the dead.

The gate supervisor rapped three times on the big wooden castle door before two knights swung it open from the other side.

"I have a big group for the prison." the supervisor called behind his shoulder as he continued to walk forward.

Once inside the castle, Jonathan's eyes went wide. There were black rugs laid out where there used to be gold embroidered crimson ones. The big corridor walls which once held the proud previous rulers portraits now were laid bare. The side of the walkway once held numerous candles in which burned the true flame of the king, ones that never went out, were nowhere in sight.

It seemed as if the castle itself had died. When they reached the castle double stairway which used to be so colorful that the prison door never stood out on the side, Jonathan could only see black carpeting winding the stairs and it made the door stand out ominously.

Opening the door, the instructor gestured for the men carrying Christopher to shove him through. When they continued their way down into the dungeon, the large group of soldiers formed a two three column barrier with the civilians in the center for show as they marched into the darkness.

The moment Jonathan went through the door he almost gagged. The metallic scent of blood and rust hit him with such force he almost retched. The smell of rotting flesh had hit him almost as fast.

As they filed through the stairwell, the almost non-existent lighting from the castle had all but disappeared. He heard tripping all around him followed by the guard leaders chuckle. They undoubtedly had the dungeons memorized by feel and memorized the amount of stairs that way the dungeon could disorient the prisoners.

"If you were here at all in the last five years you would know that the smell of fresh blood is what makes them behave, not seeing the bodies." The gate supervisor said with a hint of humor to Christopher. "You would only think of lighting if you haven't been down here for some time, which obviously means you haven't been doing your duty as a soldier." He said with a hint of pride. "Those who do do not serve will be terminated."

"This is what our once proud kingdom has become." Christopher said to no one in particular. "I would rather die with the memories I have than live in this nightmare."

The instructor chuckled slightly. "I'll kill this one myself." he told the other knights as they stopped within an open area. Though the rest of the group couldn't see anything, Jonathan had a special affinity with earth and could sense the open area.

A loud ringing sound went through the dungeon corridor as the supervisor unsheathed his sword. "Do you have any last words?" he said as he kicked Christopher in the small of the back, sending him flying into a pile of corpses.

Christopher looked into the crowd of knights and villagers. His thoughts were as clear as if he were speaking them aloud. No one else but Jonathan could see him. If you have a plan, now's about the time to do it.

Jonathan shot down to his hands and knees, he could see the sword raise, he knew he only had seconds. As soon as his hands. .h.i.t the stone floor, they emitted a pale green light.

In an instant, the ground came up to meet the downward cast of the blade. Instantly the sword shattered in the collision with the stone barrier.

Another second later, two walls formed around jonathan, pus.h.i.+ng everyone around him away safely as he tugged his dog tags from around his neck and threw them in the air. When they fell, they changed shape into two green embroidered silver hand guns. The chain grew until it hit the ground and seemed to meld with the sword, a thin line of green light cast upward from the chain into each of the guns.

Before the lead guard had time to react, Jonathan shot twice, one bullet per leg and the a.s.sailant went to his knees. He repeated the process four more times and the guards around Christopher fell.

Jonathan quickly put the chain on his twin guns around his neck and they returned snugly as dog tags around his neck.

Jonathan walked forward from the two walls he created and snapped a finger. Shackles of stone formed around the injured knights as he continued forward.

"So this is what happened to the once proud kingdom of Ebonhart Nathan?"

The supervisors eyes went wide as he took in the sight of the brown duster and unique hat of the man who approached. "Y-you died." his voice trembled slightly as Jonathan bent over his former student.

"No, I just had a more important task to oversee." Jonathan said as he looked into the knights eyes. "Though now I wish I never left." he said with a scowl. "You used to be such a proud warrior Nathan, what happened?"

Nathan looked down at the stone shackles and slowly regained his composure. He shook his head and looked back up with a chuckle. "Surely this is a ghost of my past come to confront me on the error of my ways." he said sarcastically. "When you left, the king made the changes you see before you." he said woodenly. "Those who do not follow will suffer."

"The royal color was replaced with black," he continued. "The king locked himself away and only gave orders through his advisor. He hasn't been seen in years." he looked up at Jonathan. "If you were given the choice to follow or die, what would you have done?"

"I will show you through my actions what I would have done." Jonathan said as he laid his hand on each leg, when he touched them a green light came forth. Nathan could see his wounds closing Before his own eyes. "Give me the cell keys Nathan. You know the people who are already down here are not guilty. Only when you hand me your keys will I heal the others." he said with a stern look.

Nathan looked down at his belt, on a loop held a set of keys to open the cells. He moved his hand to the loop, the shackles of watch bending with his movement and took the ring from the belt and handed them to Jonathan. "Those will open the fifty cells that are within the dungeon." he said with an exasperated breath. "We have always been warned to stay away from the fifty first cell. There is no key for that door, we were told a ma.s.s murderer resides there." Nathan's eyes met Jonathan's. "So there still is one person who does deserve to stay here. The king himself out his crest on the door to ensure that everyone knows it is by his decree that it remains sealed."

Jonathan nodded as he took the keys from his former student and placed them in Christopher's hand. "You go unlock the cell doors, I have something I must see." Christopher nodded as he took the keys and walked down the long corridor.

"The cell is in the other corridor on the right." Nathan said as he sensed what Jonathan was planning. "I normally wouldn't inform another knight of the location, but if anyone could handle that murderer it's you." he said with a dry chuckle.

Jonathan looked down the opposite corridor from where Christopher walked. He thought only for a minute before getting to his feet and walking down the hall.

The sight of the sage leaving down the darkened path made the knights on edge. They would have to rely on their training should anything happen while he was gone.

As Jonathan walked down the corridor, he used his aura to sense the winding pathway. He was able to sense where to step, and where not to. Be could tell that there were some pressure plates within various spots on the floor. One wrong step and he could trip some sort of trap laid out for trespa.s.sers. So this is why he gave me the information so freely. He thought to himself as he could sense a sharpened axe that would release of a trip wire was snagged.

Ten minutes of dodging traps and holes in the ground landed Jonathan at a giant obsidian black door. He could sense the grooves within the door which gave raise to the royal crest.

With a sigh, Jonathan placed his hand on the door. The unique pale green aura once more lit his hand. He searched the inner mechanisms within his mind until he felt the latch. With just a thought, the door swung open to a gold embroidered crimson carpeting, a small bed with a large mirror next to it as well as st.u.r.dy oak table with a chair. Within the chair sat an older man, he must have been at least the same age as Jonathan. He had brown hair with a hint of graying on the sides. A ma.s.sive brown and gray beard spilled down the red and gold robe he wore. His blue eyes met Jonathan's with a hint of surprise.

"h.e.l.lo your Majesty." Jonathan said with a smirk on his face and a formal bow. "So this is where you've been."