The Prince of Warwood and The Sword of the Chosen (Book 3)

by J. Noel Clinton

  He looked at the other boy dumbfounded. “Geez, Frankie. What are you saying? That I always get in trouble?”

  Frankie blushed. “Well, no, I mean. Well, you live with him and the odds are he’s whipped you before…and…” Frankie gave up his explanation and hunched his shoulders.

  Beck, however, burst out laughing. “God, Frankie! Talk about putting your foot in your mouth.”

  Xavier was the last to receive his schedule. When Spencer finally handed it to him, Court eagerly craned his neck to peer at the card in his hands.

  “What’s your schedule like, Xavier?”

  “They’re all the same except for empowerment classes, Hardcastle,” Beck chastised, but he too strained to see Xavier’s schedule.

  “Whoa! I think they’ve made some kind of mistake, X,” Beck exclaimed, snatching the card out of his grasp and peering down at it. “They have you down for both introduction to fencing and advanced fencing techniques. And, oi! You have two electro force classes too! And look…”

  “Sire Wells?” Spencer called from the head of the table. “I need to see you a moment, the rest of you are dismissed to enjoy your day off.”

  As the group scrambled out of the hall, Xavier approached his uncle.

  “You may have noticed that your schedule has two teachers for fencing, electro force strategies, and your empowerment block,” he told him quietly.

  Xavier nodded.

  “Your father has requested that you be placed in advanced classes as soon as possible. So you may find yourself in the introductory classes for only a few short weeks,” Spencer explained.

  “But why? Why is he in such a hurry to get me in advanced classes?” he sputtered indignantly.

  “That is a question for your father, Xavier,” his uncle concluded, looking at Jeremiah, who had just finished giving instructions to a group of older students and was now dismissing them.

  He followed his uncle’s gaze with a nod. “Ok. Thanks, Uncle Mike.”

  Spencer patted his shoulder affectionately, and with a weary smile, he whispered, “Good luck,” before limping from the room.

  The king moved to the head table and began straightening his notes and gathering file folders and booklets. Xavier shuffled over to him and waited.

  “Do you have a question about your class schedule, son?” he asked, without looking up from his task.

  God! Xavier hated it when he did that, and it never seemed to cease to amaze him either. Many times, he wondered, ‘How did he know I was thinking that?’ Then, he would remember stupidly, ‘Oh, yeah, telepathy.’

  “Yes, sir,” he replied, unable to keep the irritation from his voice. “Why do you want me in advanced classes so fast? Why can’t I stay in the same classes with my friends and kids my age? I don’t want to be in advance classes with older, bigger kids. No one else has to! It’s not fair!”

  His father didn’t answer him immediately, which only irritated him further. Instead, he finished gathering his papers and stacked them on top of the booklets and folders. Then, with a deep breath, he looked at Xavier, leaving him with little doubt that no matter what the reason, there would be no negotiating.

  “Son, let’s forget for a moment that you’re the future king and that these courses will help you to develop the skills you’ll need as king. Instead, let’s remember that in the past ten months, you’ve been at risk of serious bodily harm not once, not twice, but four separate times. You will take the advance courses so you can learn how to protect and defend yourself. You will take the courses to help you develop the skills you need to be a powerful, competent king. You will take the courses because, quite simply, I’m telling you to!” he finished flatly.

  “Oh, well, when you put it like that,” Xavier muttered sarcastically as he stomped away from his father.

  “Xavier Wells!” Jeremiah spat, slamming his stack of papers and booklets on the table with a loud thud. “Do not sass me, boy!”

  Father and son glared at one another for several seconds. Until, finally, Xavier’s will broke, and he glanced away.

  “Yes, sir,” he mumbled meekly and quickly scurried from the room.

  Beck and Court were waiting for him outside the Grand Hall. In an awkward silence, the boys traveled down the hall, down the stairway, and onto the children’s level before Beck cleared his throat.

  “Ah, X?” he muttered as they entered the dormitory.

  “Yeah?” he responded moodily, not meeting his friend’s eyes.

  “Ah, w…whatever you said to your dad up there, well, mate, it didn’t seem to work,” Beck replied earnestly.

  Xavier burst into laughter. He wasn’t sure why he found Beck’s grasp of the obvious so funny, but he did. Then, meeting the other boy’s eye for the first time since they left the Grand Hall, he retorted sarcastically, “Thanks for the hint, Beck. I hadn’t noticed.”

  As the morning wore on, the mountain’s atmosphere became more and more excitable and playful. Children and adults alike were enjoying the day off and, for the moment at least, they forgot their troubles and grief.

  Xavier and his friends spent most of the morning in the games room playing foosball and pinball. For the first time in a long time, he was having fun and enjoying himself. He was beginning to feel normal again until Robbie entered the room with a small group of girls, and the reprieve he had from his guilt and sorrow was ripped away.

  Robbie was smiling for the first time in weeks. It wasn’t an elated smile, but a smile nonetheless.

  He wasn’t the only one who noticed it. Beck blurted out from beside him, “Hey, Robbie. It’s good to see you smiling again.”

  “Yeah, it is,” Xavier piped up feebly, turning from his pinball game and losing his last ball.

  But when Robbie’s eyes fluttered to Xavier, her smile slipped, and she gave him a dark glare before turning back to Beck. “Thanks, Beck. I’ll save you a dance tonight if you’d like,” she told him, smiling sweetly.

  “Ah…yeah. Sure,” he stammered.

  Her smile broadened. “Good. See you tonight.” Then, she moved toward the ping-pong table where Erica was thoroughly pounding Harry in a match.

  Her complete dismissal and coolness toward Xavier had the boys around him shifting uncomfortably, and a thick silence was left in her wake. Xavier watched as Robbie joined in with the other girls, teasing Harry about losing to a girl.

  “So, who’s next? Xavier’s in the lead with two hundred sixty-five thousand points,” Beck called tightly, pretending as though nothing had happened.

  Xavier wasn’t sure which emotion pulsating through him was the strongest: guilt, hurt, or jealousy. However, all the emotions wheeling through him came to a screaming halt in the next instant, and the only thing he felt was complete, utter fury.

  Drew Hardcastle entered the game room with his cronies, Jonas McKnight and Seth Brown. As they walked past, Drew shouldered into Xavier, elbowing him hard in the gut, sending him unceremoniously to the stone floor.

  “Oops!” Drew sang with laughter.

  “Hey! Watch where you’re bloody going, Drew!” Xavier growled, struggling to his feet and rubbing his left hip.

  “Excuse me?” the older boy bellowed, stepping close to Xavier so that he towered over him. “What did you say to me, squirt?”

  “You heard me!” he hissed, shoving the older boy away from him.

  Drew lunged at him and shoved him roughly against the nearest wall. Xavier’s head bounced painfully off the stone surface. “You don’t get it, do you? You may be the son of a king, but here in King’s Mountain, you’re just another pipsqueak!” he snarled.

  “Yeah,” Jonas growled, pressing in from beside Drew. “And we eat pipsqueaks like you for snacks.”

  Drew gave a snorting laugh before releasing Xavier and giving his cheek a hard pinch.

  “Lay off, Drew, and call off your thugs or I’m telling Dad!” Court spat, pushing himself between his brother and Xavier.

  “Thugs?” Jonas spat, lifting Court into the
air. “Did you just call me a thug?”

  “I mean it, Drew!” Court yelled at his brother.

  Drew gave a quick nod to Jonas, who dropped Court back to the floor. Then he sneered down at his brother and smacked him playfully on the cheek. “Now, now, baby brother. There’s no need to get your panties in a twist.”

  Jonas snorted.

  After surveying the group of younger boys smugly, he motioned for Jonas and Seth to follow him, and they moved toward the door. But, before exiting the room, Drew paused, turned, and with a cocky, taunting smirk bowed to Xavier.

  “All hail, the Prince of Pipsqueaks!” he jeered.

  Then, the older boys left the room, leaving a giggling group in their wake.

  Among the laughing children, he saw Robbie. The girl who had always stood up for him and fought against bullies was now one of them. It was too much! Feeling betrayed and hurt, Xavier wanted nothing more than to hide.

  “Catch you guys later,” he mumbled, skulking from the room.

  With tears pooling in his eyes, he stumbled down the stairs to the fourth floor in search of his father. Unsure of where to go, he shuffled down the hall until muffled, urgent voices brought him to a halt next to a door on his right. He couldn’t hear exactly what was being said, but his father’s name erupted from the room.

  He moved toward the door, straining to hear the insistent muffled voices, but when he reached the door, it flew open, and Michael Spencer stood in the doorway, his hand on the doorknob. He was looking back into the room, so he hadn’t yet noticed Xavier.

  “I’m telling you, Jer. He’ll buck everything if you don’t tell him the truth about what’s going on!” Spencer yelled angrily. He turned and nearly plowed straight into Xavier. His face lifted with surprise, and for a moment, he simply stared down at the boy. Finally, he called over his shoulder, “Sire, your son is here.”

  A chair squealed from inside the room, and a second later, Loren and Jeremiah were in the doorway. A chill passed over Xavier’s body, and he realized that he had interrupted a conversation none of the men had wanted him to hear. The men shifted uneasily.

  “Son? Is there something you need? I don’t have a lot of time; Loren and I are meeting with the Royal Guard in five minutes,” his father inquired.

  “Ah,” Xavier looked at each man in turn, and suddenly felt stupid for coming. “Ah, I just wanted to see your chamber. That’s all.”

  “Oh, well, you can go and have a look if you’d like. It’s the last chamber on the left. I need to get going. I’ll see you later, okay?” he responded, patting his head as he brushed past him with Loren and Spencer. Xavier watched as the men disappeared into the stairwell at the end of the corridor.

  Chapter 6

  Exploring Trouble

  Xavier didn’t go to his father’s chamber. Instead, he returned to the empty boys’ dormitory. He flopped irritably onto his bunk before conjuring a small electro force and spinning it inches above him. He wished he knew how to transform his force into shapes of animals like Court could. It would be cool to have a glowing, golden horse galloping in circles around his head. He closed his eyes and pictured the image clearly in his head, smiling at the thought.

  “Cool horse,” Garrett remarked suddenly.

  Xavier’s eyes snapped open and saw the remnants of a golden stallion above his head before it vanished completely.

  “Where’d you run off to, mate?” Beck asked.

  “Uh, nowhere special,” Xavier muttered.

  “Well, we’re going up to the Grand Hall for lunch. The cooks have set up a huge table of sandwiches and stuff so that people can go and eat whenever they feel like it,” Court told him.

  “Oh, well…I think I should wait on my dad,” he responded, but Court shook his head.

  “Sorry, mate. Both our dads are having a lunch meeting with the Premier Royal Guard,” he explained.

  “Oh,” he muttered. How had Court known about the lunch meeting and not him? He wouldn’t have even known about the meeting with the Premier Guard if he hadn’t gone looking for his father. It was obvious Court saw more of his father than Xavier saw of his! Or, at least his dad told him stuff. Resentment expanded inside him until he felt its bitter taste in his mouth.

  After the boys devoured sandwiches, chips, and a large slice of chocolate cake, they sauntered out of the Grand Hall, belching.

  “I don’t think I could look at another sandwich again,” Garrett moaned, rubbing his stomach.

  “Yeah, I think we overdid it with that slice of cake,” Beck agreed, releasing a deep, throaty belch, and the other boys snickered appreciatively.

  “Now what?” Frankie asked the group.

  The boys shrugged and frowned in thought.

  “Let’s go exploring!” Mac suggested. “There’s loads of stuff we haven’t seen or done here.”

  Beck looked at the other boy with a mixture of surprise and subtle respect. “Not a bad idea, Clarke,” he replied, and Mac grinned at him. Beck turned to the group. “Well? What do you say?”

  Beck needn’t have asked for the group gave a roaring “Yes!”

  Moments later, the group of boys, in one loud boisterous mob made their way down the stairs, past the children’s and the infirmary floors until they spilled out onto the seventh level. This level was still under construction and posted in the middle of the main corridor stood a sign stating,

  Warning!

  Danger!

  No unauthorized persons!

  Frankie froze in front of the sign, reading and rereading it as the other boys barreled past, talking excitedly.

  “Hey, wait a minute, guys!” Frankie hollered after them. “Didn’t you see this sign?”

  Beck gave him an impatient look. “Yeah, we saw it, Francine. What about it?”

  Frankie’s face went red as he blared, “It says danger!”

  “Very good,” Beck mocked. “Now, can you read the other big words, Mama’s boy?”

  Frankie glared at Beck with a don’t-mess-with-me expression. “I’m just saying…it says no unauthorized persons.”

  “God, Frankie! If you’re going to be like this, just go back to the dorm!” Beck bellowed, advancing aggressively towards the other boy.

  “Cool it, guys,” Xavier called, stepping between them. Then he turned to Frankie. “Look, Frankie. I’m your prince, right?”

  He nodded.

  “And, that means that I’m your future king, right?” he asked, and again, he nodded. “Then as future king, I give everyone here the authority to enter the restricted areas of King’s Mountain.”

  Frankie stared at him dumbfounded, but after a brief glance at Beck, he grinned. “Okay. That’s good enough for me!”

  The group behind them exploded into cheers as the tense moment passed. The group continued down the hall, and Beck moved to walk next to Xavier.

  “Sorry about that, X. It’s just that you have to push Frankie to do anything normal. His dad split when he was a baby, and his mother keeps a tight hold on him. If we didn’t make him act normal, he’d be some nerdy kid that nobody likes.”

  “Sure, I understand.” And, he did, more than his friend knew. Beck’s words reminded Xavier of something Loren had once said about Dublin, “Just think, if we hadn’t loosened him up with our adventures, he would’ve squeaked when he walked.”

  “Come on. Let’s go this way,” Xavier declared brusquely, leading the boys down a passage that resembled a tunnel more than it did a hall.

  The tunnel broadened into a crudely cut chamber that looked as though it had simply been created with a few sticks of dynamite. Mining carts were scattered about the room; many filled with debris and rock ready to be cleared from the chamber. On the other side of the room, a narrow, low tunnel extended into the darkness.

  “I wonder where that goes,” Beck muttered.

  “I bet it goes outside,” Court suggested, and all the boys gave him doubtful looks. “Well? Where else are they going to take all the rubbish they clear out of her
e?”

  “Hey,” Xavier started, an idea forming in his thoughts. “Have you guys ever ridden in bumper cars before?”

  “I have,” Garrett piped up. “My parents dragged me off to New York to visit some of their old college friends, and we went to this carnival. It’s where people get into little cars and ram into one another, right?”

  “Yeah! You have telekinesis now, right?” Xavier asked Garrett.

  “Yeah, but I’m not all that great at it, yet,” Garrett protested.

  “Well, neither am I! Didn’t you hear about the tornado I created in my room?” Xavier snickered.

  “I heard about that!” Mac joined in. “That really happened?”

  Xavier nodded but continued looking at Garrett. “Well, what do you say, Garrett. Are you game?”

  Garrett flashed him a grin and raced to one of the empty carts.

  “Wait!” Beck yelled, following Garrett. “I want to ride with you.”

  “Court? Wanna ride with me?” Xavier asked.

  “You bet,” he agreed, following Xavier to another empty cart.

  “Hey! What about us? We want rides too!” Frankie called.

  “Don’t worry. You’ll get one,” Xavier promised.

  It wasn’t long before the boys had several carts dented so badly, they could no longer sit inside them. So Xavier and Garrett entertained the others with a game of crash-cart-derby. In this game, each boy raised a cart into the air and attempted to knock the other boy’s cart to the ground. Their friends cheered them on and kept score, awarding five points to the boy who succeeded in achieving the goal.

  At one point, Garrett caught Xavier off guard, and his cart made solid contact with Xavier’s, sending it pummeling toward the chamber floor. Xavier managed to catch it inches from the ground and lifted it back into the air. The boys around him cheered.

  “Nice catch, Xavier!” Court yelled.

  “Yeah, that was awesome!” Mac cheered.

  “Nice try, Bracus, but Xavier’s still in the lead, thirty-five to twenty-five,” Beck announced.