Lilly the Knight (Chapter 2)

Written by Taylor Lee

Genre: Adventure, Drama, and Fantasy

Audience: All ages

Chapter 2: Mysterious Frog

By dawn, the King's decision had been made, though it sat heavy as iron upon his heart. The bells of Eldoria rang out across the snow-dusted kingdom. These were not the joyful rings that called folk to festival, but deep, solemn tolls that signaled a shift in the kingdom's fate. The last time these bells had rung in such a manner was when the King's father had ruled.

Lord Aldric, the King's chief counselor and commander of what remained of Eldoria's military tradition, stood upon the raised platform of the training grounds as the sun climbed the eastern hills. He was fifty years old, broad-shouldered and gray-bearded, with eyes that had seen battles in his youth before King Aldwin had ushered in the age of peace. His armor, though polished to a mirror shine, bore the dents and scratches of real combat, a contrast to the ceremonial plate worn by Eldoria's current knights.

"Hear me, good people of Eldoria!" Lord Aldric's voice carried across the gathering crowd like the call of a war horn. "Our beloved kingdom faces a threat unlike any in living memory. Six kingdoms shall eventually mass their armies at our borders, coveting the wealth beneath our feet and the freedom we hold dear. His Majesty, in his wisdom and his duty, hath called upon all able-bodied souls to take up arms in defense of our values and home!"

He paused as cries and whimpering echoed through the crowd.

"If any among thee be sick or under the age of twelve, thou art exempt from these orders; yet rest assured, thy duties shall still lie here in the kingdom. Report to the training camp for evaluations!"

The training grounds had always been empty, save for the occasional tournament or ceremonial drill, but now they were filled with hundreds of Eldorians. Farmers still smelling of hay and earth. Blacksmiths with soot beneath their fingernails. Merchants' sons and millers' daughters. Elderly veterans who remembered the old ways, and young folk who had never held a sword save in play.

Some came eagerly, their faces flushed with patriotic fervor. Young men puffed out their chests and gripped practice weapons with white-knuckled determination. But many more came reluctantly, fear written plain upon their features, driven only by love of kingdom and their King.

Among the latter stood Lilly.

She was small for her fourteen years, with dark hair braided simply down her back and eyes the color of chestnuts. Her hands, calloused from helping her father in his carpentry shop, trembled as she clutched the hem of her woolen cloak. She had come because the bells had commanded it, and because her father, too old and sick now to fight himself, needed her to help protect their home. Eldoria was her world, and she could not bear the thought of foreign soldiers trampling the streets where she had played as a child.

But oh, how she wished to run.

"Form lines!" Lord Aldric commanded, and the crowd shuffled into rough formations. Knights in partial armor moved among them, assessing, sorting, pointing folk toward different sections of the grounds. "We shall train every soul who can hold a blade! Archers to the east field! Spearmen to the west! Those with no weapon skill shall learn the quarterstaff! If any among thee cannot fight, we shall find thee a task. This shall be thy new quest as an Eldorian!"

Lilly found herself pushed forward with a group of other young women and smaller-built men. A knight with a kind face but stern demeanor looked them over with a practiced eye.

"You there, girl," he said, pointing at Lilly. "What is your name?"

"L-Lilly, sir. Lilly Carpenter." Her voice came out barely above a whisper.

"Speak up! A soldier must have a voice that carries!"

"Lilly!" she said more loudly, though her heart hammered like a drum and her hands clenched. "My name is Lilly!"

"Better. You are small, but I see strength in those hands. Have you ever drawn a bow before?"

She nodded. Her father had taught her to hunt rabbits in the woods near their cottage. She was a fair shot, though she had always hated the moment when the arrow found its mark, when life became stillness.

"Archers, then. To the east field."

As Lilly turned to go, she caught sight of Lord Aldric watching from his platform. For just a moment, their eyes met, and she saw something in his weathered face that made her heart sink. He knew that many of those gathered here would not survive what was coming. He knew that he was sending children and farmers and shopkeepers to face trained warriors. And he knew that she was afraid.

But what choice did any of them have? To die when the armies arrived, or to try to fight and die with honor defending their kingdom.

The day passed in a blur of instruction. Lilly's arms ached from drawing the practice bow again and again. Her fingers grew raw despite the leather guards they gave her. Around her, other recruits laughed nervously, boasted to cover their fear, or wept quietly when they thought no one was watching.

As darkness began to paint the sky in shades of purple and blue, Lord Aldric dismissed them to the barracks that had been prepared near the training grounds. The soldiers would stay close to the kingdom's most vulnerable walls, ready for anything. Lord Aldric wanted them prepared at all times.

Lilly lay upon her straw pallet that night, surrounded by the breathing and snoring of two dozen other girls and women. Sleep would not come. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw armies marching, swords flashing, blood upon snow. She saw her father's cottage burning. She saw herself falling, an arrow in her chest, dying far from home.

"I cannot do this," she thought, tears sliding down her cheeks. "I am no soldier. I am no hero. I am just Lilly."

When the camp finally fell silent in the deep hours before dawn, Lilly rose as quietly as a mouse. She gathered her cloak, her small pack, and the worn boots her mother had made for her before the fever took her three years ago. She did not take the bow they had given her. She wanted nothing to do with this war that was coming.

"If I die on the battlefield, my father will be helpless," she thought miserably as she slipped between the tents like a shadow.

The forest began just beyond the eastern edge of the training grounds, where ancient oaks and ash trees stood sentinel over Eldoria's borders. Lilly had played in these woods as a child and knew their paths and clearings as well as she knew her father's workshop. She would hide here, she told herself. Just for a little while. Just until the fear stopped choking her. Then perhaps she could return and find the courage that seemed to come so easily to others.

But as she walked deeper into the woods, the familiar paths seemed strange in the pre-dawn darkness. The trees loomed taller, their branches reaching like gnarled fingers. An owl hooted somewhere above, and Lilly jumped at the sound. She walked faster, then faster still, until she was nearly running, her breath coming in gasps that clouded white in the cold air.

She did not know how long she ran, only that when she finally stopped, chest heaving and legs trembling, she had no idea where she was.

The forest around her was utterly unfamiliar. These trees were older, thicker, their trunks wrapped in moss that glowed faintly in the growing light. A stream was nearby, its water so clear she could see smooth stones at the bottom in the moonlight. And everywhere there was a feeling of ancientness, as though she had stumbled into a place where time moved differently, where the old magic of the world still lingered.

"Hello?" Lilly called out, her voice small and frightened. "Is anyone there?"

No answer came except the whisper of wind through leaves. Lilly sank down upon a fallen log, buried her face in her hands, and wept. She wept for her fear, for her shame, for her father who would think her lost or dead. She wept for King Aldwin and his impossible choice, for Lord Aldric and his sorrowful eyes, for all of Eldoria facing a doom she was too weak to help prevent.

Ribbit.

Lilly's head snapped up. "What was that?"

There, not three paces away, sat a frog upon a moss-covered stone.

But this was no ordinary frog. It was large as a cat, with skin that shimmered green and gold in the dawn light. Its eyes were great, round, and impossibly wise. The frog regarded her with what could only be called intelligence. Around its neck hung a tiny circlet of woven grass and wildflowers, as though it were some manner of woodland nobility.

"Oh," Lilly breathed, wiping her tears. "Hello, little... well, not so little... friend."

Ribbit, the frog said again, and somehow the sound seemed almost like speech, like a word in a language just beyond her understanding.

They stared at each other for a long moment. Then, slowly, deliberately, the frog turned its head to the left, looking toward a thick tangle of branches and ivy. It looked back at Lilly. Then toward the pile of branches again.

"Do you... do you want me to follow you?" Lilly asked, feeling foolish for speaking to a frog, yet somehow certain it could understand.

The frog hopped down from its stone and began moving toward the branches with surprising speed. Every few hops, it stopped and looked back at her, waiting.

Lilly stood on shaking legs. Every instinct told her to turn back, to find her way to the training grounds, to accept her duty no matter how terrified she was. But something stronger than instinct, something that felt almost like destiny, pulled her forward.

She followed the frog.

As she drew closer to the branches, she saw what her eyes had missed before: behind the tangle of thorns and vines, there was an opening. A tunnel mouth, carved from living stone, its entrance marked with symbols so old they had nearly worn away. The frog hopped to the very edge of this darkness and turned to face her once more.

Its golden eyes seemed to say: Trust me. This is the way to another world.

Lilly's heart pounded. The tunnel breathed cool air that smelled of deep earth and ancient secrets. Somewhere far below, she thought she heard the faint tinkle of water, the whisper of wind through vast spaces.

"I do not understand," she whispered to the frog. "Where does it lead?"

Ribbit, said the frog, and hopped into the darkness.

For a heartbeat, Lilly stood frozen at the threshold. Behind her lay the forest, the training grounds, the war she was too frightened to face. Before her lay only mystery and shadow.

But the frog had trusted her to follow. And somehow, in that moment, Lilly found a courage she had not known she possessed—not the courage to fight, but the courage to trust in the magic of discovery, in mystery, in the strange and winding paths that fate sometimes laid before trembling feet.

She took a breath, pulled her cloak close, and stepped into the tunnel.

The darkness swallowed her whole, and her journey into wonder began.

End of Chapter 2

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This short story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or real events is purely coincidental.