TG Cap - Curse of the Witch

The first part of a probable two part story. See if you can count how many different stories I've ripped off here. If you get it right I'll probably give you a nice surprise. I'm quite proud of this, it sounds like proper fantasy when I read it. I hope you guys feel the same way

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Second part



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Arstan the Bold pulled the final arrow from the witch’s corpse, his master and liege lord, Sir Cadogan the Black, stood watching. This was not the first time that the Scourge-Witch Mathilda had faked her death. Arstan had volunteered for the opportunity to check that her evil was finally banished from the world. The wounds seeped a purple/brown substance in stead of blood, and the flesh itself turned to ash as his hands touched it. The soul was absent from the body, he smiled relief, his face growing all the more wrinkled beneath his helm. This was to be his last war, and it had been victorious.

“The Witch is dead!” he cheered, the men joined in chorus. There would be feasting that night. But Sir Cadogan was not satisfied, his face was stormy as the sky above, but with a contemptible grin. He had earned his position through nepotism, but had kept it through cruelty, backstabbing, and arrogance. He dismounted his destrier, and let his considerable trappings of wealth fall about his waist.

“Sir Arstan, my loyalest man. You have served my house with honour and distinction. I would have you perform one more service of me.”

“Anything my Lord,” Arstan bowed. His disappointment in the youngest member of the Black family seethed beneath the surface, but he would never let it arise in front of anyone. He had served Cadogan’s grandfather, Lionel, in the battle of the seven pines, and the war of succession. It had been a genuine joy to fight alongside such hardy and honest men. Now in disrepair, with an ailing King on the throne, and the heir in disrepute, the nation was falling about around his ears. Serving beneath a bastard Black was beneath him, but it was his duty to serve.

“You will fetch for me, the sword of the Scourge-Witch Mathilda. I would have it as a gift for my father, a treasure to display for all the kingdom, and I will ride into my next battle with the hilt at my side.”

The words came frostily, in both tongue and in the air. The cavern was growing colder with each passing moment. The lower soldiers cowered in fear, but Arstan stood his ground.

“That sword ought to be destroyed,” Arstan stuttered back, “let the drummer boy sketch the design and take it to Cam the blacksmith. Have him make a facsimile, nothing good will come of wielding such evil.”

Cadogan scoffed, and took a few paces forward, but not grasping for the sword himself. He had issued an order, it would be beneath him to kneel in the stead of a hedge knight.

“Are you disobeying my order?” Cadogan gritted his teeth in frustration, knowing that this would mean death for his finest servant. Arstan considered his options, but Cadogan’s expression and demeanour changed from adversarial into a more mocking tone. “Do the dead frighten you Sir Arstan?”

The other soldiers giggled. They were from base born houses, and knew not the wars of kings and mages, most hadn’t seen a real sword until it had been thrust into their hands the morn of the battle. These were particularly dull and sycophantic, following Sir Cadogan in the hopes of gaining favour with the powerful house.

“They do not, my Lord, as you know. I have sent enough across the river of Hades myself, I know no danger lingers there. But it is with the living, and the stain of the magicks in the sword that I fear. Mathilda is known to have gained her power from it.”

“Which is precisely why I must own it, imagine my prowess on the field of battle, the tourney ring, the tilted javelin, and the power of Mathilda. I would return this crumbling kingdom to a transcendent glory! Fetch it for me at once, or feel the consequences!”

Arstan stood his ground, knowing that death would be a far sweeter end than the permanent pain of grasping the sword of Mathilda. Legend told of its spreading corruption. It leeched life, called to the weak and then devoured them in its power. Cadogan did not have the heart to slay a mortal man, not that night, and so he threw Arstan out of the way, and pushed forward.

“Fool, you will pay for this.”

The old hedge knight knew the curse of Mathilda, and it was not an obvious one to the naked eye. It was the curse of power. As long as the sword existed, as long as the tale and promise of the magicks held within would be told, then she would still live in the world, that her twisted evil would take root, and then grow. As long as men like Cadogan were born, which would be as long as time itself, then creatures like Mathilda would bend them to their will.

“My Lord, I pray you…”

In a flash, Cadogan grasped the rippling purple power of the sword’s hilt, drawing it up from the ashen corpse, and brought it about Arstan’s throat in a flourish.

“Don’t!- Don’t you dare defy me Sir Arstan the Bold, Sir Arstan the Bald more like.”

He was shouting, spitting with each syllable, growing louder, knuckles baring white around the leather hilt.

“Your days have grown too long, old man. You have forgotten your place, your DUTY TO MY FATHER, YOUR DUTY TO MY WORD!”

As Arstan crawled backward on the ground, having fallen in the melee, Cadogan began to float from the ground. A nightmarish, ancient, impossible light surrounded him, the aura of the Scourge-Witch herself. The soldiers had already made themselves scarce, fear could do that to a man, so Arstan was the only one to witness the transformation.

The young lord’s words turned from vitriol to unintelligible, his musculature creaked and cracked back and forth, splitting the armour that covered him with the force. His eyes burst bright with fire, as did his mouth, spewing raw magick into the world. His hair grew longer, growing wild and unkempt, his body still moving in inhuman ways. For a second, he stopped, and the boy shone through once more.

“Arstan…?” he called, as if realising what he had done. As if realising what he had become. Instead of the arrogant young military commander, this was the voice of who he had been, who he should have been. The innocent young man, thrust into a position he had not been born for, with the weight of the world on his shoulders. He sounded childlike, naive, lost. But only for a second, before the cackling sound of Mathilda’s voice rang a deafening horns blow from within. His armour ruptured, becoming a mockery, a revealing version of the witch’s garb. His face rippled, and then was replaced by a woman’s, all of him replaced by a woman’s. By Mathilda. Arstan did not wait for the completion, he turned tail and followed the bolting horse into the shadows, vaulting up onto the back of the destrier to make good his escape.

“YES, RUN MEN. RUN IN THE FACE OF THE SCOURGE-WITCH MATHILDA. AS LONG AS YOUR WILL IS CORRUPTIBLE, I WILL RULE.”

It had all been for nothing.