I need your opinion. I think I have perfected this as well as I can but I need your comments and opinions. I have had 2 beta readers tell me it is really good, one said it was way too short and my son wants me to just whack the guy and move on. (he has an issue with death. In fact, if I’d written it the way he wanted me to, this would be a comedy, not a tragedy!) 
Anyway, I will give you a brief set up. The dragon, Einar, has just attacked Gyllen Castle. The king, queen and the king’s protector, friend and most formidable knight, Sir Trogsdill, are missing. Eric is Sir Trogsdill’s squire and his best friend is Sestian, Sir Farnsworth’s squire. They are both held in high regard because of who they serve. All comments are welcome!
***
“Of all that is good in heaven, how could this happen?” Sir Gowran wiped the beads of sweat from his forehead. Sticky strands of russet hair clung to his rugged square face and the back of his neck. His clothes hung in shreds from his taut arms and legs. His voice teetered on the fine edge between lucidity and madness.
“Tash the heavens, Gowran,” Sir Crohn said. “God’s eyes were turned from Gyllen this night. Where were our sentries? Why didn’t they sound the call?” His black eyes bulged from behind the curtain of straggly black hair. “So help the wretched soul that fell asleep on watch for if I find him alive he will wish Einar had killed him first!”
“Settle down, Crohn,” Sir Farnsworth said. The eldest knight looked a disheveled mess; his blood soaked tunic adhered to his torso like a second skin. “Look around you. Our men lie amidst this rotten smell of death.” He worked the strands of his ashen hair into a frizzed plait; a leather boot lace secured the braid. “This slaughter is not their fault. Einar caught us with our trousers off. He knew what he was doing.” He adjusted the sword upon his back. “Eric, come here.”
Eric limped forward. “Yes, sir?”
“Do you have your wits about you, son?” Sir Farnsworth examined Eric’s injuries.
“Yes, sir.”
“Good.” He placed his hands on Eric’s shoulders. “I need you to gather a search party, as many men as you can find. We need to start searching the grounds.”
Eric lifted an eyebrow. “For what?”
“Gildore, Mysterie and Trog. They should have returned to Gyllen by now.”
Eric wiped his brow. “Sir, with all due respect, what you ask will be near impossible. Sir Trogsdill has no doubt taken them far from here. To try and locate them would be like trying to find a ghost in a fog.”
“Then I suggest you become proficient at ghost hunting.”
“But, Sir —”
Gowran grasped Eric’s shoulder. “Quit protesting boy and go! Daylight won’t last forever.”
Eric grumbled, found a horse and returned to the castle. The gatehouse was destroyed. The courtyard lay in ruins. Shards of colored glass and tiles jutted from the debris where Festival Hall once stood and muffled cries wafted up from the underground apartments buried beneath the rubble. Everywhere around him women and children wept. Animals lay dead. Men scurried about like army ants, clearing the wreckage from the grounds. Through the chaos and confusion came a muffled cry for help that sent a shiver straight through him.
“Eric! Help me.”
Eric looked over his shoulder, his eyes wide. “Sestian?” The cry came again, this time more desperate. A cold chill slithered up Eric’s spine. He dismounted and ran toward the sound, panic spreading. “Sestian! Sestian! Answer me! Where are you?” He spun around at the sound of his name once again. There, a few feet away, lay his best friend partially exposed beneath the debris. “No!” Eric yelled, diving to the ground. He clawed at the sharp stone fragments, throwing them aside. “Sestian! Can you hear me? Say something!” Sestian gurgled. His face twisted in agony. Eric worked harder. His fingers and knuckles were scraped and bleeding, but he didn’t care. He had to save his friend.
Sestian swallowed. “Eric. Help me.” Blood trickled from his mouth.
“Shh. It’s all right. I’m here. Lay still. I’m going to get you out of here.” Eric shoved more rocks out of the way.
“I-I can’t feel my leg.”
Eric wiped the sweat from his brow with his arm and shoved hard against the massive stone weighted on Sestian’s legs. When it finally moved, Eric gagged at the sight of his friend’s mangled body. One leg was crushed; the other was severed at the thigh. Blood gushed from the wound. Eric watched as the life poured out of his friend’s body. Why did I have to move the stone? I have to stop the bleeding. I can’t let him die! I have to do something! He cut a strip of cloth from his shirt and tied it around the stump and yelled, “Help me! Somebody, help me!” but no one heard over the moans and cries and clap of wagons. He was alone. No one was coming to help him.
He glanced back down at his friend. Sestian’s skin looked chalky and gray, his lips pale. “Come on, Ses,” Eric said, his hands soaked in blood from working another tourniquet. “Don’t you dare die! Who will best me in chess, huh? Who will I spar with?” Eric grasped Sestian’s hand and held it tight. Of all that is good in heaven, please don’t let him die. Eric looked around, frantic. Where is the surgeon? Why isn’t he here?
Sestian whispered, “I’m. . . sorry.”
The words caught Eric by surprise. He leaned over his friend. “Sorry? For what?”
Sestian closed his eyes. “For failing Farnsworth. For failing Hirth.” He sounded so weak, so frail. Not like Sestian.
Eric grasped his friend’s shoulders. “No. You listen to me. You failed no one. Do you hear me? No one!”
Sestian inhaled a sharp breath and moaned with pain. “Y-you’ve g-got to k-kill him for what he’s done. P-promise me.”
Eric nodded and blinked back the tears. “I promise. You and me together, just like we used to do when we were little. We used to play with that old burlap dragon Farnsworth and Trog made, remember? We’d rip it to shreds and Farnsworth and Trog would always put it back together again.” Sestian gurgled and gasped for breath. A tear fell down Eric’s cheek as he held his friend’s hand. “Hold on, Ses. Just a bit longer. The surgeon’s on his way. We’ll get you in a nice warm bed and I’ll bring you some barley soup. I’ll even fetch Olivia for you. Maybe she’ll take pity on you and you’ll get a kiss out of her this time.” Eric hung his head and pressed Sestian’s hand to his forehead. Please don’t let him die. Not here. Not like this.
Gentle hands grasped Eric’s shoulders. He looked up to see the surgeon looking down at him. “Are you all right, Eric?” the man asked. “Are you hurt?”
Eric shook his head. “No. It’s Sestian. You have to help Sestian.” He shuffled out of the way and watched as the man examined his friend. “He’s going to be all right, isn’t he? You can save him, right?”
The doctor pinched the bridge of his nose, sighed and placed a firm hand on Eric’s back. “I’m sorry, Eric. There’s nothing I can do. He’s dead.”
Eric shook his head and stood. “No. T-there has to be something you can do. You’re a surgeon!”
“I can’t, son,” the surgeon said. “He’s gone. I’m sorry.”
“No! No! You’re wrong! He’s not dead! We’re going to be knights and conquer the world together! He’s going to marry Olivia Armwood and we’re going to grow old and fat together.”
The surgeon grasped Eric’s shoulders. “Son, I know this is difficult, but you must listen to me. Sestian is gone. He’s dead.”
Tears streamed down Eric’s face. He looked over the surgeon’s shoulders and stared into Sestian’s glazed eyes, fixed and lifeless. His gut rippled and squeezed and then the sobs came in uncontrollable, unstoppable torrents.
The surgeon hugged Eric for a moment and then said, “I’ll give you a moment to say good-bye. I’m sorry.”
Eric knelt and stared into the eyes of his best friend, eyes that once held so much passion, laughter. Why? Why did you have to go, Ses? What am I going to do without you? Who’s going to spy on the knights and feed me the latest gossip? How am I to get through a day without seeing your stupid grin or hearing your laugh or watching you fix up an injured animal until he’s good as new? How am I going to tell Farnsworth you’re gone?
Two men arrived and Eric wiped his eyes and stood back in stunned silence as they loaded his friend onto a wagon stacked with other victims of Einar’s wrath — mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, sons and daughters — and then carted them away. Eric’s gut squeezed with grief. Through his tears, he caught a glint of sunlight flicker off a silver chain around Sestian’s neck. A treasured gift from the father Sestian never knew. “Wait!” Eric said, running after the wagon. “Stop the horses, please.” He climbed onto the wagon, his knees quaking so hard he thought for sure he would crumple on top of the bodies now reeking with decay, and reached Sestian. With great care he slipped the necklace with the dragon pendant and ruby eyes over Sestian’s head and then backed off the cart, apologizing for stepping on the dead.
Eric grasped the pendent tight as the wagon rolled away from the castle grounds. All around him, women and children lugged buckets of water from the Cloverleaf River to the workers gathered around Willow Fountain. Other wagons carried the injured to the infirmary. He glanced over his shoulder at the cathedral and palace that somehow managed to survive Einar’s attack, and the door where he’d left Trog and his king and queen, still remained open. Reality slapped him hard. Farnsworth! Oh no. I have to get men. I have to find Trog and the King and Queen. He squared his shoulders and straightened his spine. He had a task to complete. A job to do. No longer was he a squire-in-training. This chaos was real and the most powerful knights of Hirth were depending on him. He looked down at the chain in his hand, kissed it, and then placed it around his neck. “Until we meet again, my friend.”
A slight breeze toyed with the strands of his hair as Eric washed his hands in Willow Fountain. He stared at his face in the water. So much had changed in his life in such a short period of time. More changes were sure to come, but for now, he needed to focus on one thing and one thing alone. He drew in a deep breath, shook off what sorrow remained and set about the impossible task of ghost hunting.
