The Sacrifice of a Hero: Revival Read online

  THE

  SACRIFICE

  OF A

  HERO

  *

  REVIVAL

  MICHELLE JOY

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, incidents are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

  No part of this book may be replicated, redistributed, given away in any form, or stored in a retrieval system without the prior written consent of the author or the terms relayed to you herein.

  Text copyright © 2016 by Michelle Joy. All rights reserved worldwide.

  CONTENTS

  A word from Michelle Joy

  Prologue

  Chapter One: Chaos

  Chapter Two: The Night Watch Knights Treasure

  Chapter three: The knight’s last will

  Chapter Four: Unfairly executed

  Chapter Five: Rebirth of a hero

  Chapter Six: Rising from ashes

  Chapter Seven: Saving the beauty

  Chapter Eight: Resisting blood needs

  Chapter Nine: Claiming the beauty

  One last thing

  A word from Michelle Joy

  Thank you for buying and reading my book. Writing a book is a long and lonely process, so when I send a new story out there, I love to hear from my readers their honest opinion about this. If you really loved-it, a review on Amazon - even one line to let others know what you thought of the book - will be highly appreciated.

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  Michelle

  Prologue

  By the end of the year AD 1190, the Norse set their courses in a multitude of directions. They wanted to expand and plunder the east, so they invaded Russia, they sailed their long ships towards the well-known passages of Volga Rivers and into the gut of the world known as the Slavic world, then sailed towards the cities of the Byzantium.

  They set their path in the direction of the south before expanding into Europe as merciless rapists and tour the world with their ruthlessness. They didn’t miss any place and entered as many locations as possible, they seized a stranglehold that belonged to the English Channel and they even reached the east of the Atlantic and wrapped, dominated the Mediterranean, they were like a thorn in the throats of the kingdoms of the west. Even Northumberland, that was called the river city, collapsed completely and its walls were vulnerable to the ferocious crawling with the Viking Heathens for almost a year before the attack.

  It was only the desire to plunder which spurred the Heathens to invade the south and also the east. But it was pristine lands that attracted them the most and pushed to plunder villages which were rich in silver and natural resources. The promise of becoming rich and claiming new lands together with gathering as much cattle and sheep as possible made Heathens look greedily to set on some mountains. The Norse ravished most of the English and Irish shores; they successfully founded Dublin then accompanied their Irish slaves with them.

  Meanwhile, the original night watch Knights were a group of knights made of ten knights and was formed in order to be the elite warriors and the protectors of the Pilgrims of Christian in their journey towards the Holy land. The night watch Knights vows were mainly, honesty, nobility, loyalty protecting the poor, obedience to the king and their main symbol was to defeat poverty. What was special about those horses was the fact that they all shared only two horses, as they were unable to afford one horse for its knight. At first, poverty hit them hard, but later, they became quickly wealthy and influent, then they gained power from the pope and step by step, they started to regain back what was taken from them by force, including many plundered monarchies. That group of knights became fearful and everybody was scared of them whenever they drew their swords and leave them uplifted, they were ready all the time to deliver two furious ferocious blows that no one could ever, avoid, people thought that if any blow of those swords would fall upon anything even a rock, it would split it into pieces and would asunder one from toes to head like a pomegranate. And thereby, because of the newly created group, kings, and monarchs of Europe started to fear the Night Watch Knights.

  During that time, it was believed that many of them had chosen to return from Christianity and started to practice black magic while worshipping several gods and divinities made of their main principal and slogan. They called it Moirai or Fates goddesses, they were mainly three divine sisters, and they presented incarnations of people’s destiny and life. People used to call them per order Clotho was the goddess responsible for spinning the thread of life while Lachesis was the goddess who maintained the role of drawing the destiny of people and determining how long they would live, and Atropos, the third goddess, and sister was thought to be the one who would pick up anyone to die and she would do so by cutting the thread off his life with the shears she had. People used to describe them as ugly creatures.

  The Moirai were said to have the ability to control both the lives of the mortals and that of gods. Only Zeus was believed to be the one who wasn’t affected by them. For some reason, people believed that the Night Watch Knights were related one way or the other to the three deities and Zeus, and they strongly believed that Frayne Albinson was the most powerful knight of that royal master group of Northumberland.

  It all started in AD 1240 to 1300, when in an interrogation was ordered by the king and under the command of king John of Northumberland, Frayne was forced to confess that he had rejected Christianity. What made the situation worse was that Frayne was obliged to make a confession too in front of the public and made a statement that accused him of denying Christianity and his confession was what brought the king’s anger upon the rest of the knights.

  The Pope considered Frayne’s confession a humiliation of the nation as a whole and in order to regain his unprecedented power as well as authority, the pope forced the king to arrest all the members of the knighthood of The Night Watch and charges them with heresy. And it was in the start of the early morning of a Saturday in November the 13th of 1307 that almost all the knights in Northumberland were arrested and all of their properties were taken by force from them and seized by the Pope, and it was on the end of 21st of the same month that the Pope made his decision and took a stance from the knights by issuing a bull, he instructed all the monarchs in the different parts of Europe to arrest all the knights, including all the followers of the Night Watch Knights. Many of the knights’ families were kicked out of their proprieties and the majority of the Knights themselves were brutally killed, and with them, the order that was maintained for nearly three hundred years was wiped out once and for all. And even those who were not killed were tortured ferociously until they were forced to confess that they desecrated the cross and the Pope even accused them falsely of Adultery, homosexual behavior and even practicing black magic.

  Although the ten knights suffered a lot, they didn’t give up and kept struggling until the very end, they even composed a song that depicted that depicted their journey and urged people never to forget about them. One of the worshipped symbols that the knights were accused of taking instead of the cross were Gilda and Aka. Gilda was believed to be the representative of the devil and the incarnation of the gods of witches. While the god, Aka, was thought to be the god of war, darkness, mysticism and it w
as said that he formed the family of the darkest adventures, he was the leader of the strongest and the most ferocious Vampire tribes. On July, the 25th of the year 1307, the Pope made his decision concerning Frayne Albinson and Alfred Andrews and granted them what he considered to be a mercy, indeed, it was absolution that he granted, and he took the same decision concerning many other knights of the Night Watch, many others were sent to exile, a cold mountain no one could reach and most of the people knew very well that it was a haunted place and they said it contained the remnants of the North wall where the sun was said to never have shown, a lost city in which lived only of illegal children who never saw the world or met the other people. It was said that those people were carnivores and were obsessed with the human blood and flesh. Only knights who denounced Heresy managed to keep alive amidst their insane world of vengeance and anger. Frayne and Alfred together with some other Night Watch Knights were declared to be reinstated into the unity of the Church and to a group that was named the Faithful Guardians of the Lion.

  As time passed by, the knights who were accused of heresy changed their old statements and confessions. They started defending themselves against the order they took from the king himself strongly and declaring that the confessions they made were taken from them under severe torture, one only word they were repeating, justice. Yet, it seemed that the knights made their fatal mistake and on March 13th, 1309, the king, and in order to intimidate and humiliate the rest of the knights, condemned more than forty knights to death, and the death he chose for them was to be burned in the main court of the monarchy and at the stake.

  The knights walked in dignity towards their deaths and rose their heads as they believed they didn’t do anything wrong, but defending their lives, they never betrayed, but remained faithful servants to their king. Commoners were shedding tears as they watched how their best knights were drawn to death; they were holding each other’s hands and facing their destiny.

  In the meantime, Frayne Albinson and Alfred Andrews were captured in the king’s gloomy dungeon while sleeping on the wet straw. One of them and only one knew the secret location of the Night Watchmen’s treasure, and the golden bow of the Lion. Yet, the only secret that he didn’t know was that his only friend, Alfred had already made a deal with the king of Northumberland. The deal consisted of convincing Frayne to reveal the secret location of the treasure of the Night Watch. And greedy for the king’s forgiveness, and to save his life, Alfred was trying everything he could to attain the king’s ransom. However, if he failed in convincing Frayne to reveal his secret, Alfred would lose his only opportunity of freeing himself from the net of imprisonment and he was even promised a horrible death that would be remembered for centuries to come. The king threatened Alfred that he would cut his members in front of his eyes, he would peel his skin and then he would burn him alive. And to make Alfred eager to get out and carry on the plot they made together, the king allowed him to get out of the prison on different occasions, so that he would ensure the man would love to free himself from his prison. He would even send him in a royal carriage to visit the spring’s castle, where Alfred felt alive again. Royal servants helped him get cleaned, bathed him in honey and roses and milk, he was even able to comb his hair after a long while in which he didn’t even see the light. Then Alfred was granted the most elegant women together with silky clothes; for moments, the man forgot that he was even a prisoner. The hall that he had dinner in was full of oak walls, blue and red stones. It was like a dream where a fireplace was lit, an altar with a cross, and some oak tables that made the place look gorgeous. The king made sure that no one would dine with Alfred except a servant and that was the case during all his visits to that royal castle. Alfred started to suit himself in the new place and he even drank different kinds of wine, sweet bread, and soups together with vegetables and all the kinds of meat that ever existed, boar, rabbits, deer, anything he wanted, he found in front of him. Common people never used to taste meat in their lives; it was a privilege reserved for the royal family and all the animals which lived in their land belonged to them; and so it was Alfred’s first time to taste meat.

  Alfred made sure to eat as much as he could because he knew very well that he didn’t have much time left and thereby, he didn’t want to waste any second without tasting a new meal. However, even if Alfred would have been able to figure out the secret location of the treasure and the golden bow of lion that belonged to the Night Watch Knights, Alfred was aware of the fact that he had taken his vows and swore never to break them in any circumstance, it was a path he made ever since he became a member of the Night Watch Knights. And despite the deal he made with the king, Alfred wouldn’t hesitate whenever he had a tasted a glass of wine, to raise his cup high in the sky, and recite the words that made his vow and Night Watch’s oath:

  “Our bright garments that are decorated with our Blood Cross will always remind us that we have to be able to make sacrifice. Doth must not seek wealth or gold, it might be that tomorrow will test you thousand tests and put your lives at stake. We shall know that excuses will never erase a sin or haze.”

  Yet, the king’s suffocating financial problems made him press Alfred more to let his friend reveal the place of the treasure. The king was furious as Frayne refused to reveal the secret and he even flew into a rage as nothing helped to force Frayne to confess, thereby, the knight was sentenced him to death and to convince the people and avoid their anger, the king asked for the Pope’s consent and that was what exactly happened. It was a dark night when, on the evening of May the seventeenth 1313, Frayne was burned brutally to death or was he really dead?

  For an ordinary human being, what happened to Frayne that night would have meant a perpetual painful death, especially that flames swept over his body; it didn’t matter how much he yelled and how much he screamed because no one dared to approach him while he was burning like tree logs, no matter how many times he said he was innocent, nobody heard him and nobody intervened. Not only being burned alive was painful, but dying for a crime he didn’t commit, dying for being faithful and loyal, Frayne kept screaming as he was burned, he was crying out for justice, for revenge, he was cursing everyone starting from the pope to the king, but something was strange in his words. Frayne uttered his last words promising the king and the pope that he would come back in the same day of the following year, right in the same place.

  “My king, to thee I address my cry, for you the Pope too, hear my screams, remember me and beg heavens that I forgive you, because in less than one year, you will be standing in front ready to confess the crimes you committed and burning me. There will be nowhere for you to glare or escape to. I curse you all; including you, my king for I never betrayed you neither did I expect that that evil resides within your heart. You will all see that no punishment can be enough to soothe the pain of betrayal I felt from you, my friends, you all made woe and cry in pain, I curse you all to the last generation of your pure blood! I will show no mercy and my anger will wipe out the green and the shadowy trees off your land. Remember my words for my revenge is soon to come and your days are numbered, my king,”

  In more than two months later, the Pope died from an illness they never knew, and on the same date, the king died dramatically when he lost control on his horse and fell down a high cliff while he was on his way hunting. Yet, it seemed that Frayne not only cursed the king and that Pope for what happened to him, but all the descendants of the Pope and the king were cursed and chaos started to dominate the land as the four sons of the late king died one after the other; each of them passed away one week after the other. There was no heir to continue ruling the land and running the people, it was then that the entire monarchy fell down to anarchy. The royal house collapsed and with it collapsed all the hopes of regaining the lost dynasty.

  At the same time, Frayne died and his secret died with him; no one had been able to find out the location of the lost treasure and the golden bow of the lion. The moment he died, a thunderous storm hit Northumb
erland, and although the monks who were ordered to bury the remains of Frayne’s corpse, followed the orders, they couldn’t find any trails of the body, it was weird and monks were frustrated of what happened, but they didn’t dare spread the news as they were afraid people would start worshipping Frayne or the last warrior; he lived great and died greatly that his remnants were taken away by the howling wind.

  Quite a short time passed after the elimination of the Night Watch Knights and the dramatic fall of the House of the king, when the plague hit harsh and struck Northumberland and Europe; it was the worst times ever in Europe as the plague came up with more power and ferocity. By the end of the 1340s; and in what was described as the black storm of death, people started suffering from black spots on their arms and legs. No one had been able to discover the cause of their sudden illness and the condition of the patients worsened as the black spots started to develop and they sores began oozing blood then boils and blotches and the last symptom was an internal bleeding that ended with an unbearable pain followed by death.

  As the mysterious illness blew as hard as it could, a huge number of people died and more symptoms swept the lands, like high fever. Many of the people who suffered from that mysterious plague would go to bed safe and sane, but they would wake up feeling sick and throwing, some of them wouldn’t even make it to the morning. And for more than three years, Northumberland and the United Kingdom together with Europe lost around half of their population. Northumberland lost more than seventy-five per cent of its people; everything was ruined, the monks couldn’t control as hard as they could earlier and they used to be, but death was the one that ruled them. People knew that what happened to Northumberland and their land was due to the sins the monks committed towards innocent people while the plagues that blew out were a clear proof of the chaos human corruption brought to themselves as well as their lands.