The Forgotten King

Do not ask me how he came to be there. Let it suffice to say simply that he was there, deep in a forest of the grandest trees imaginable, each standing straight and tall, like living towers that watched all in silent meditation. There he stood, clothed in a ragged green cloth that barely reached his knees and elbows, with a longsword sheathed at his side and a fierce light in his eyes. It was a light which could mean only one thing: independence. He walked slowly through the underbrush, looking about himself as if searching for some hidden beast that might at any moment spring forth and ambush him. Such was the way of the forest: one against all and all against one, strength against strength, survival of the fittest. Not that the forest was without law, for law is more than flesh and bone. Yet the law of the forest was this: give no mercy, for none shall be given you; spare no tactic to conquer, for none shall be spared you; forget no wrong and allow no insult. Such is the kingdom of nature. Do not ask me why he was there. Let it suffice to say simply that he was there, a solitary human amongst the creatures of the forest. A human he might have been, but still he was a beast of the field; for there was no refinement in him, no eloquence, no cultivation. There was, however, a spark within his breast, a light among the darkness that would sometimes show itself, revealing in its shadows the remnants of someone who was once there, before he had taken the course of nature and decayed into something inhuman, something of the forest.