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SEBASTIEN had an army of twenty thousand men when he reached the bounds of Fairendale. There were many who would work for the promise of grandeur and honor and wealth in a kingdom as rich and beautiful as Fairendale. It was not so very difficult to build his army of young, strapping men.
King Brendon had ruled for many years, but all in the kingdom knew that he had no gift of magic, that he had only a daughter as heir to the throne. They knew, also, that they loved him dearly. He was a good king, kind and true and so very generous that no man, were he born with magic in the very kingdom he could steal, would ever want to challenge one such as him. He was not particularly skilled in sword fighting or combat strategy, but he was particularly skilled in loving his people and caring for them well. A kingdom can flourish more beneath a king who cares than beneath a king who does not.
But Sebastien was only a boy. He did not know the stakes.
He only knew that he was powerful and there was a kingdom ready to be stolen from the hands of the king with no magic to match his own. He knew, also, that he had another magic more powerful than most: charm. How does one build a twenty-thousand-man army without charm? How does one win the hearts of mothers and wives in foreign kingdoms so they willingly permit their men fight, without charm? How does one convince men to leave their wives and children and follow him into danger without charm?
Sebastien had traveled to the lands of White Wind in the north and Eastermoor in the East and Ashvale in the West and Rosehaven in the northwest. The only land left untouched was Guardia, to the far, far north, simply because he knew its people would be immune to all his charms. He did not need a trip to foreign lands as harsh as that when it would only prove pointless. Sebastien, you see, also had the gift of combat strategy.
When he had finished gathering men from distant lands, Sebastien returned to Lincastle, to all his friends, and he invited them to fight for his cause. The kingdom of Fairendale never saw him coming out of Lincastle, though his numbers were great. Fairendale was peaceful, and sometimes years of peacefulness can make a king let down his guard.
And Sebastien had mastered the concealment spell. Though it weakened him considerably, he risked his own life to ensure that the people of Fairendale and their dragons of Morad did not see or hear his men coming. He grew tired toward the end. A dragon spotted them when the spell left a hole in their fog. But it was already too late. Sebastien and his men had already invaded the land.
Sebastien marched his men through a burning forest. Men screamed around him, writhing, falling, dying, but he did not stop. He was untouchable. The talisman his father had given him for his sixteenth birthday served him well that day. Archers brought down dragons all around him. He watched them fall, and he marveled at this army he had built. He was a king. That much was certain.
Sebastien was the first to step into the clearing, where he found a wall of people surrounding the king’s castle. But they were untrained men, not so very difficult to cut down.
He did offer them the opportunity to surrender peaceably. He would never have let them all go, of course, but they did not take the chance to test his word. They attacked, so his men, what was left of them, attacked as well.
King Brendon headed straight for Sebastien. The king’s scream filled the whole world. “I am the one you desire,” he said. “Please take me. Let my people go.” But it was war, and one could not simply let people go, not when swords clashed all around and scarlet stained the once-green grass and Sebastien’s staff did its work. The castle grounds and all around it grew quiet, eventually. There were heavy losses on both sides. Only a handful of villagers remained. They gathered together in a tight circle on the lawn of castle, bleeding from wounds that would heal. His men gave a shout of victory, though it was not a loud one, for their side had lost many as well. Sebastien suspected some of them had deserted in the heat of battle.
Sebastien smiled, a dashing kind of smile that made some of the village ladies swoon, he could tell.
“If you swear your fealty to me,” he said, “I will let you go.” This time he meant it. He needed ladies and gentleman in the kingdom, for he needed to rule over someone. These who remained were the bravest and smartest of all the kingdom’s people, he supposed. They did not say a word, but he knew they were simply too afraid to speak, or, perhaps, too awed. Sebastien ordered what remained of his men to let them go, and then he broke through the heavy oak doors and the spacious halls and walked the royal carpet to the golden throne.
And when he had settled into the cushioned chair rimmed with gold and jewels, he smiled another dashing smile, though no one was in the room to see it, and gently set his staff on the ground, to do its deepest work yet.
If one had been standing in the ring of villagers still living, one would have seen every man who had followed Sebastien across rivers and mountains and grasslands fall down around them, to never rise again. A king did not have to fulfill his promises after all.