All Along the Watchtower
The Never Ending Quest - Episode 64407
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The tower had seen better days. Its sides were scarred with burns from
incendiary bombs, its battlements crumbling in places. It had previously
been one in a series of guard towers surrounding Castle Montefort. It
now stood alone, a quiet sentinel overlooking the barren plains of the
Duchy Suffex, once full of farms and families, and overlooked too the
Castle Montefort, the former Ducal seat. Now, though, it was the only
land in said duchy that remained in the hands of the Great Kingdom after
four long years of war.
Captain John Barcly had seen better days too. At barely 20, he was too young to be a captain, a leader of men, but at the same time uniquely qualified, as he had served in the cauldron of this war since the beginning. He had defended Castle Montefort with all his life, some three and a half years ago. Coming in, with his father and brother, from their nearby farm. Rallying to the flag of Duke Dredrik as the amazon hordes pressed their advance. He had watched his brother die as he desperaetly tried to hold the gate. He had fought in the courtyard, suffering his first grevious wounds, and being extricated by then-captain Flint Locke (now a knight and an advisor to the king) after the death of the Duke D'Honaire. He had survived that awful battle, and the countless others that followed. But the scar and patch on his left eye, and the limp and stoop in his formerly erect posture, were marks of a war that seemed unending. As Barcly stood at the top of the tower, framed by the setting sun, he spit in defiance at the Castle Montefort and the green Aqualarian standard wafting in the late autumn's breeze from the castle's prominent keep. He remembered with regret when he had first seen that banner raised. From a distance, retreating northwards in defeat. Never again. In the deepening twilight, he thought he could make out some movement on the plains. Looking through his spyglass, he could just make out a group of amazons approaching the tower. Too few, though, to take it. What could their plan be this time?
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Xavier
12/18/2006 12:38:19 PM
Extending Enabled
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