Neytopia › Part 2: Noon › Chapter 1

The king over no land

The boy was born in a small village on the southern continent. As son of the lord, he was loved and well-fed. The villagers lived in peace, working the fields. Life was short, work was hard, but they were grateful. Whether the harvest was bountiful or not, despite hardships and pain to endure, they offered food to the gods.

Then one year came an army of thieves, rapists and murderers. At first a small disorganized band, they had grown to become a real threat when a man declared himself king over no land and imposed his will. Since then he led them through the land, preying on small villages, pillaging, murdering and enslaving everything they could find.

The king over no land always hid behind a mask. Some said he was immortal, others said it was a woman.

They were all wrong.

Some villages and cities had prepared for his arrival, but most believed he was just another boogeyman used to scare children. The king over no land himself charged into his village, swinging his two-headed axe against defenseless women and children. The boy was only sixteen when the king came. He had woken up with the alarm bells and saw the king decapitating a woman with a single swing. Then the king looked at him and the world stopped.

The king started walking toward him, unstoppable. The boy fell to the ground: a poisonous arrow had struck him in the shoulder. His vision became blurry and soon he was out cold. Meanwhile, the barbarians slaughtered the men and chained, raped and sometimes beat the women to death.

The soldiers and men over sixteen years old were put to the sword. Women and children, even him, had their chests branded with hot irons, marking them as slaves for the rest of their lives. The youngest children would be trained to fight for their new king or die training, thus continuing the endless cycle.