The Lord of the Red City in the best of times
had the heart of a falcon, soaring and stooping
to keep his people, even the poor, from want.
Now the lord was dead, and that spirit was gone.
The land had a bloody cast. The people, once brave,
were wretched and overwrought with specters of conspiracy
because the death was unthinkable—shouldn’t have happened.
Murderers had come from within. The traitorous attack,
a confederacy of two, took one to swing the blade
and one, the enabler, to have the assassin’s back.
The killers were the good lord’s own sons.
He had raised them from boyhood, not his blood
but his responsibility, he thought. He followed
the golden rule. But he indulged them so much
they turned and lorded over him and over
the people in the land as he lost touch.
As the saying went: let a lout rule
and he won’t be happy until all the goodness
around him is gone; beware the heart of hearts
of those you raise up. The people drifted away
from the sons’ tyranny, shifting allegiances elsewhere,
draining wealth and making the sons pay.
The two blamed the losses on their failing father.
If he were gone, their power would only grow.
They plotted to kill him and carried it out eagerly
when he was hunting and stopped to rest by a well.
The blow left him bleeding slowly to death,
a tale he lived long enough to tell.
When a retainer found him, by chance, he said,
My sons have done this. They overthrew my heart.
They took my regal place and now my life.
Write it all down. My betrayal must be repaid.
The knight complied and folded the letter in the hand
of the dolefully fallen lord. There it stayed.
As the dying man had commanded, the retainer placed
his body in a vessel bound for Camelot and its castle,
which soon would host an assembly of noble knights.
Among the best was Palomides the Saracen,
famous as a bridger of cultures and hunter of beasts.
For a demon slayer, there was little comparison.
Palomides read the letter from the hand
of the murdered lord and promised to avenge his death.
Even though the lord let himself
be trapped by deceit and, perhaps, shared some blame,
the killing shattered the code that Palomides
lived by. He had to act or live in shame.
Both of the Red City sons were guilty.
The news was spelled out for all to see.
A lingering question: Which crime is worse,
caving to bloodlust or quietly calculating
one’s advantage in the lord’s death?
Copyright © 2026 by Sam S. Dodd