Deposing the Troll Kings

This bloody midnight massacre ended in the deaths of nearly all the royal family and most of their guard.
Dugald's argument that "men should not serve monsters" gradually gathered ground in certain political circles, aided by his generous promises of reward. Plans were laid carefully by the usurper, enlisting just enough of the guard within the royal fortress. When the duty rosters were posted for that fateful evening, those loyal to Dugald were put on watch, while those loyal to the royal family were left unknowingly at risk, sleeping when the insurrection began. One of the first actions by the insurrectionists was to barricade the barracks' doors, to trap their royalist comrades inside and then set fire to the barracks. Dozens of loyal guards died in the first two hours.
Likewise, the royal family was slaughtered almost entirely in their bedrooms. It is said King Fying put up a great fight—but this may be a fabrication by Dugald to enhance his own conquering reputation, as Dugald himself bore no wounds which might have resulted from such a close and fierce combat. Servants whispered that King Fying had complained of headache before retiring early, and some even suggested the sleeping king had been dragged from his bed and stabbed on the floor to keep blood from the bedclothes and support the story of a fight, with the room's disarray arranged after the king's death. But no one could speak of these suspicions openly.
Whatever the manner of the king's death, not all of the royal children were taken in their beds. The princesses were dragged down the corridors and executed on balconies, cut or thrown to their deaths. The youngest prince, just four, was thrown repeatedly against the wall of his nursery until he stopped moving.
One of the elder princes, Cairbre, was wakened by servants hearing the commotion and rushed through a servants' passage. He was only just barely ahead of Dugald's rebels and surely would have been captured but for two youths who had not been in the barracks with the other guards.
Morgan and Malcolm, guardsmen-in-training who lived with their widower father in the barracks, were known for their pranks and had been disciplined often for infractions—but on this night, their high spirits saved their lives, and that of their prince. Out on a prank when the massacre began, they rushed to fulfill their duty as some of the few loyal guards not trapped within the burning buildings. Though nearly everyone they knew was dead, they ran to intercept the rebels, covering Cairbre's flight.
Of course two terrified, half-trained boys could not hold back the rebels who had already slaughtered half of the fortress, and they were quickly disarmed and taken. But one had been wounded in the process, and as they were identical twins, it amused Dugald to wound the other in an identical manner, so that the boys continued to match.
But his cruelty cost Dugald critical moments, and Cairbre was able to escape thanks to the boys' sacrifice.
The twins, kept too loosely by rebels who thought them disabled with injury and grief, managed to get away, but they were not prizes to pursue as closely, not while the coup was so near to completion. Dugald did take the throne that night, greeting Norskar in the morning as the new King Dugald, while Cairbre and the twins Morgan and Malcolm met outside of the city, destitute and grieving.
For seventeen years, Dugald reigned upon his bloody throne, and no one heard of the escaped prince or his two loyal guards.

The Conflict

Aftermath

While Dugald had gained favor with talk of a fully human king being more attentive to his subjects than a "monster" like the Troll Kings (who had, by this point, only a trace of inhuman blood), in fact he turned out to be the more oppressive monarch by far, from his taxes, to his military predations upon foreign merchants, to his Arena of Justice which employed cruel games and trials for public exhibition.

Conflict Type

Showdown

Start Date

1617

Ending Date

1617

Conflict Result

Dugald's ascension