A boy and his Imp

The door to the Prince’s chamber opened violently, the blood streaked guard standing in the door was of average height and build, his hair gray and cropped very short. his sword was drawn and bloody, as he stood there panting blood dripped onto the rug in the Prince’s bedroom. He looked about wildly until he spied the Prince gearing up for combat.
Shrieks and the sounds of battle were resounding through the stone castle. “M’lord you must make our way to the escape tunnel! The Metallic guard has arrived and they are killing everyone, they have us greatly outnumbered and we stand no chance.”
The Prince buckled on his sword and turned to face the guard. He was a tall man but thin like a sword’s blade. His long blonde hair was tied back with black ribbon and his features were beautiful but cold, as if his face was carved from marble. He looked every inch the warrior Prince that he was.
He began to walk towards the door as he does so he begins to draw his sword, a plain bastard sword, no gems adorn the hilt. The sword could have belonged to any soldier in the Prince’s vast army. the only thing marking it as the Prince’s was the family crest stamped into the blade, the crest was a fox curled up it’s tail covering it’s nose but it’s eyes open.
Without a word he motions for the guard to follow him. The guard stands there shock written on his face “In all the years that I have been your loyal guard have I ever steered you wrong? Trust me you can’t win this fight...”
The Prince says one word, “Family.”
The guard grasps the Prince’s arm “I sent a handful of our best knights to get your brother to the tunnel and I am sorry to tell you this, but your parents have already been killed, you have to leave if you want to ever regain your castle.”
The guard beckons the Prince to follow him but the Prince shakes his head and begins to stride towards his brother’s room. The younger prince was five years old and had the same sort of looks as his older brother but where there was nothing but cold steel and marble to the eldest, the younger was like fire, his emotions there for everyone to see, even at such a young age he was well loved by all, but no one loved him like his fierce older brother. The young prince loved his brother equally he strived to emulate his brother in every way.
The guard followed behind him hesitantly. The pair headed down the vast halls of the castle battles raging all over, the castle knights and guards were losing everywhere they saw. They stepped around the corner to find one of the Metallic Guard kneeling over the corpse of a one the young washerwomen. The Metallic Guard was wearing armor made of a heavy chainmail the color of polished copper, the candle’s flames were reflected by the strange armor. His mace matched his armor and was laying on the ground near the corpse He snickered as he pulled out a few copper coins that he quickly stuffed into his pouch. Seeing the Prince he tried to rise, he fumbled for his weapon but before he could even raise it the Prince had taken his head from his shoulders.
The body crumbled with a symphony of metal crashing against stone, the sound of the head landing was lost in the tumult. The Prince never even missed a step. Silently he continued towards his brother’s room. As they neared the young prince’s room the sounds of fighting grew louder.
As the Prince passed a hallway another Metallic Guard in copper armor stepped out and swung  his mace at the back of the Prince’s head. The Prince’s loyal guard  was to far away to do anything other than shout a warning . The Prince spun raising his own sword not to block the mace but the arm swinging it. The blade met with the Metallic Guard’s arm right above the elbow and the force of the swing combined with the Prince’s strength resulted in the guard having one less arm.
The arm tumbled through the air and as the Guard tried to scream the Prince grasped his hilt in both hands  then raised the sword above his head and brought it down at a sharp angle towards the Metallic guard, the blade cleaved through the mace wielding Metallic Guard hitting his collarbone and continuing down all the way through the man at an angle. The sword exited through the man’s side above his hip. The Prince then turned back towards his objective. A few halls later the door to his brother’s room was finally in sight and he was just in time, the family guards that had rushed to defend his brother were laying dead or dying on the ground and only one young Knight stood between the six men and the young prince’s room. The Metallic Guard around this door wore a silver armor similar to the pair that the Prince had already cut down. The armor was finer and they were using swords instead of maces. The swords were the same silvery color as the armor.
The Knight was one of the finest that the kingdom had but was hard pressed to keep the six men at bay. His sword flashing like a silver whirlwind, he blocked every attack but was incapable of retaliating. The Prince walked up behind the six men and had killed two before the other four even noticed he was there. While the young Knight was a whirlwind the Prince was faster. The Prince took down all four while the Knight gazed on in stunned amazement. The Prince made the killings look like a dance, his sword a blur that the Knights gaze couldn’t even follow. In four seconds there were four corpses. They had been skilled warriors and the Prince looked as if he had been fighting peasants armed with nothing but sticks.
The Prince pushed past the Knight and into his brother’s room, where his brother was hiding under the bed but when the Prince stepped into the room, he clambered out and ran to the Prince. The young prince was clasping the dagger his brother had commissioned for his birthday, it was an adult’s dagger so in the child’s hands it was almost a shortsword. It was a plain dagger save for the family crest. The young prince carried it everywhere just like his older brother always had the bastard sword strapped to him. The young prince even tied his hair back the same way.
The Prince scooped him up and they began to leave the guard and knight following close behind. They rounded a corner and at the end of the hall sat three archers with arrows held at the ready.
The archers wore no armor but they all had dingy metal cuffs on their wrists. The Prince whirled his back to the archers  covering his younger brother with his body, they loosed their shafts a moment later two buried themselves in the prince on in his thigh and the other high on his left shoulder the last arrow struck his loyal guard in the chest. He thrust his brother towards the young knight “Protect him” His loyal guard charged the archers while the Prince limped slowly towards them.
More arrows buried themselves in the two of them but the Knight watched in amazement as the Prince batted a few arrows out of the air with his sword. More of the silver Metallic Guard come out behind the archers and a Metallic Knight followed behind them wearing armor in a shimmering gold color, it reflected the light like a prism. The Knight quickly turned and ran towards the tunnel carrying the young prince under his arm. The tunnel lay in the throne room.
The Knight, with the young prince in one arm and his sword held in his other hand burst into the throne room. The door slammed shut behind him with a loud bang causing him to quickly whip around.
When he turned back around he was facing a large man in rainbow armor, the armor shone like a star in the night sky. The man’s hair and beard were the white of alabaster. The man stood by the king’s throne twenty feet from the door and with a gesture and a laugh the man ripped the Knight’s sword from his hands. The Knight lunged for his sword and quickly regained it but when he looked towards the throne the man was nowhere to be seen. He looked back towards the door and the man was there lounging against the door.
The man laughed again. “Never seen magic? I am not surprised.”
“Human’s can’t know magic, it has been that way for ages.” The Knight said with disbelief. He was slowly backing towards the escape tunnel. “What do you want from us?”
The man grinned “I want your kingdom, it has resources that I need and my gods demand that I take it from you.” he face broke into a sly grin “Also I love taking what I want from those less powerful than I, which is just about everyone.” “Give me the child and you may join us. You don’t have to die, you can join our ranks, with your skill level you could easily make silver or better.”
The Knight was standing right next to the throne. “What if I refuse you?”
The man grinned “You die.”
“The choice is obvious then I want to live” the Knight said.
“Put down your weapon and bring me the child.” The Knight knelt and set his sword down, he quickly pulled a knife from his boot and as he rose hurled the knife at the man. The Knight hoped that since throwing knives was a very eccentric skill for a true knight to have, one he learned only to impress the young prince he held in his arm, that the old man would not be expecting it. He wasn’t expecting such a trick, but the man managed to use his magic to stop the blade inches from his eye but while he was distracted the Knight slipped into the escape tunnel behind the throne and he ran.
The tunnel was hard to spot unless you knew it was there and he prayed that the man in the shimmering armor would take at least a few minutes to find the entrance. As he ran the sound of the man raging and destroying the throne room faded. The Knight ran as hard as he could towards the exit and hopefully towards safety.

“No matter how many times you tell this tale to me, you are not going to convince me that you, some old drunk, who is I will admit pretty decent with a blade, but still an old drunk was a king of the knight’s realm and that you faced the Grand Lord of the Prism and survived.” The young man speaking was tall and thin, but well muscled from years of hard labor. He was leaning on the edge of a tall wooden wagon, the wagon was painted with several colors all swirling together, his long blonde hair tied back with a black ribbon.
He was speaking to a man who was laying in the dirt near the cooking fire. The man’s hair was cropped short and what hair he had was grey, he had the look of a hard man who had drank too much and fought too often.
“How come the prince I described looks like ya?” He slurs.
“When someone makes up a story they can change the details” the youthed laugh. With a motion almost too fast for the eye to see the old man hurled a knife at the youth. The youth caught the knife and flung it at the wagon where it stuck quivering.
“Too slow old man” the youth grinned.
“Mylo, you need to take this serious. One day I won’t be around to protect you, this circus though it has hidden us for more than a decade but...”
Mylo quickly interrupts “Someday the Metallic Guard will find me and finish destroying my family line. If I am not careful.” Mylo scoffs “The reason we have to hide out with this circus Titus is because you are a old man who despite his abilities couldn’t maintain any sort of work other than this because you can’t put down the wineskin.”
A loud roaring tears through the conversation before the old man can reply. Mylo sighs and says ”I have to go feed the beasts, they get cranky when their meals are late.”
He heads towards the roaring, moving briskly he can hear all the lesser animals answering the Manticore’s cry. He quickly went to the butcher’s wagon and gathered a wheelbarrow full of haunches from various animals, deer for the lions, horse for the tiger, the smaller animals getting the leftover chunks. The manticore which was their primary animal exhibit got the best though, large hunks of beef.
He also grabbed an apple on his way out which he stuffed in his pocket. He quickly feed all the large cats and beasts of all shapes and sizes. Where many men would fear such beasts Mylo was at ease around them for he had been feeding them ever since he could remember. He remembered nothing before the circus, it was his life. Titus joined the circus when he was very young and he remembered little of how they got there but he had many good memories of living there. Having a child join the troupe of performers was uncommon, and it delighted the performers, many of them took him under their wing.  When most children were learning their parents trade, Mylo was learning, gymnastics, juggling, knife throwing, wrestling, and even how to fight with a sword.