Luithuil of the Ui Ulaid lived for many years after that day. He sired children and ruled wisely and was loved among his people. Before passing he had instructed his son and heir to carry on his burden, to rule the Ui-Ulaid and protect the tirui from the return of the Accursed. His son was a loyal and wise boy who became a good king and ruled wisely for many years, always preparing himself and his people for the day when the Accursed might return. Other rulers came after him, century after century, and yet the Ui never forgot their eternal duty. They stood ready, spears sharpened, keen eyes set upon the far horizon. The world outside the lar riocht boiled in chaos and death as the new peoples strode across its boundless vastness inheriting it for themselves. Tribes, kingdoms and empires rose and fell, cities endured for centuries only to be torn down by envious hands, people forgot their ancient gods and worshipped newer, darker gods, and always they rose and multiplied. The world of the Ui became the world of the Goshaen, Sakhm’Yvar and Mankind and they forgot the Accursed and the Fall that he had wrought. As centuries gave way to new millennia, only the Ui truly remembered, only they kept spear to hand.
The Watcher
The child cried as the city burned.
On the mountainside, above the dying city, a warrior sat upon his war-mount, keeping a lonesome death-watch. In his arms he held the newborn, its skin pink and flushed in the cold night air. The warrior considered the infant, born just a few hours before and ripped from his mother’s breast a few hours after that. The cold dark metal of his armour stood in stark contrast to it’s swaddling gown and the child’s face was illuminated by the maelstorm of fire that raged in the city below. The warrior could detect a resemblence in the newborn’s face – of the man he had sworn to protect until death, of the man who now faced his doom in the city below. Even from this distance he could feel the heat of the inferno raging below beginning to wash against his face. Soon he must leave here, the place he had called home for so long. But first, first, he must wait…and watch. He owed the city and its king at least that much.
The great walls of the city were awash with fire. Once white and majestic, these bastions burned slowly to blackened ash. Massive breaches had been wrought in several places along the western wall – each fissure representing a titanic undertaking in time and lives. The warrior knew from old that the enemy cared little for the expended lives of their own host such was their hatred of the city below. Somewhere deep inside the city’s bowels a massive fireball erupted into the heavens, belching flame and debris high into the air and even overshadowing the holocaust raging below along the walls.
From his vantage point he watched the next phase of the assault intently. Already he could see the shattered first wave of attackers falling back from the crumbling walls, to be replaced by newer fresher companies who would carry out the assault on the Inner Citadel. The enemy were now flooding through Tahrmen, the Eastern Gate, moving inexorably into the heart of the city, killing and burning as they went. The fighting for the gate in the hours before nightfall had been desperate and the enemy had paid an enormous price to take it. The moat around Tahrmen was now bridged my a mass of slain warriors, the first of the enemy companies of the attack being fed to the city’s defenders so that the warriors of the second and third waves could use the bodies of their brethren to gain purchase along the walls. Now the Gatehouse was cleaved and broken, its defenders slain and scattered. Oiseaan, the Gatekeeper, had died with his men, trying in vain to hold back the endless horde. No bards would compose songs of his heroic deeds on this night – the kingdom was dying and its people were dying too. In a few generations the world would forget the land that man had named Tyr-Tanindul.
The enemy had not come here on this night to conquer nor even to enslave. They were bent on destruction, on extermination. They would kill all living things, tear down walls and towers, and sow the earth with salt so that nothing would ever grow and live there. They had lusted for this night for centuries and now their dark gods cried out for this ultimate blood sacrifice. For countless generations the enemy had looked upon this proud and mighty city with cold envious eyes and at last, on this night, their plans and plots had come to fruition.
“Damn you Jedennah, you fool, you utter fool..” the warrior cursed “damn you Eldessa, and damn you Oathbreaker, damn all of you!”
Silently he began to weep, the faces of a thousand dead men and women passing before his eyes. The child continued to cry, a fitting tune to the death of everything.
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Who knew how long he was there for, how long he wept for the dead and the dying but eventually his reverie was interrupted by the sound of horses. He tensed briefly – although the enemy did not have cavalry, on this night, of all nights, he could ill afford to make hasty assumptions. His fears were unwarranted however as two riders came into view. Behind them came more riders, a ragged company of warriors, bloody and exhausted. They had fought for their lives to clear the city and most of their number had probably perished upon the road.
The first man was as broad as the other man thin. He had a powerful frame accentuated by his heavy plate armour. He wore his hair long and braided and the warrior noticed for the first time that the man had the first hint of greyness in his beard and moustaches. A broad war-hammer, and its twin, a battle-axe, was tied to the man’s saddle. Sitting against his front was a small boy, at most five summers old, with light brown hair and eyes swollen from tears. The child’s lips quivered and black soot covered his cheeks, his tears creating crazy patterns in the blackness of his face.
The second man, in his middle years, was razor thin with a gaunt worried face and long bony fingers. The leather armour he wore was faded and pitted, evidence of a thousand battles and trials. Usually he would have his two longswords secured to his back for easy reach while a-horse but not tonight. Instead of weaponry the man carried a small bundle of swaddling, holding a small boy, barely two summers old. Blessedly the child slept soundly, perhaps the only soul in all this kingdom that slept untroubled on this night. The child had survived an assassin’s blade only the previous winter, a small scar on the shoulder its only reminder. Akhenaten’s blessing the child and their fortune would hold out for just a little longer and deliver them from this place.
“Brothers..” he greeted them “ it is good to see you again. Despite the circumstances we find ourselves in”.
The first man nodded curtly, his eyes steel despite a night of horror and a road behind him shrouded in death. The second man was not as strong, something the warrior knew of old, and yet he was stronger than most men.
“What of Jedennah and the Queen?”
He asked the question, already knowing its answer and steeling his heart for it. The first man shook his head sadly. A slight look of anger, of despair, crossed his features momentarily – something that would be missed by most people but painfully obvious to someone that had known him so many years.
“You know the King’s wishes brother, he and the Heart Guard will stay to defend the city while those that can will flee south to King’s Rage. We are to go separately with the children and make for the Bastionlands..”
“And the Queen…” the warrior prompted
The second man shrugged.
“Eldessa will not leave the King’s side………a madness grips her, she grieves for the kingdom, for the city. She calls on all the gods to bring down vengeance on the head of the Oathbreaker…..the King tried to make her go with us but she will see no reason, no hope…”
The warrior’s head bowed with this news. He regarded the swaddled babe in his arms, now blessedly sleeping.
“Broderic will give us cold welcome in Norecraalia if we go there without his sister” the second man continued “but what could be have done? We must obey her as we obey the king!”.
“She is lost Jherun” the first man told the second “she has been lost a long time. Since the night of Elessa, the Night of Shadows, she has never been the same. We all
thought this third child might return her wits but it is not so. Better she is with Jedennah now, this world was too hard for her”.
“What of this child……..and his two brothers” he nodded to the two other warriors’ charges “ …..are they to be orphans, never to know the touch of their mother, the smile of their father?”
The first man met his eyes, willing him to be strong, not to surrender to the despair gnawing at all of them. The second man looked away, lost in his own thoughts after his outburst about the Queen.
“We will keep our oaths brother” the first man’s eyes continued to bore into him “..that is all we can do now. We must forget that dying city below and obey our King’s last order, that is who we are, that is what we must do!”
The warrior sighed heavily, knowing that his brother, as always, spoke truth. He was always the wisest of the three, and the bravest.
“What must we do then Patrichus?” he addressed the first man by name.
“I will go south with the people and make for King’s Rage” the man answered. He nodded to the other man “Jherun will take the western road and head for Nestoria, and you my brother will take the eastern. Make for the coast and take ship to Mannessah of the Oceans. The gods willing we will see each other all again in Norecraalia…”
The warrior nodded. It was the best course of action. These three children were the last of their blood. If they perished any hope of recovering this kingdom from the Skal died with them. And so, he and his brothers would go their separate ways, hoping that at least one of them would make it to the safety of the Bastionlands and preserve the bloodline of Jedennah.
Each had served the city and its king for most of their adult lives. They had fought a thousand bloody, hopeless, engagements to keep her free – seen the deaths of a lifetime’s worth of friends. They were old men now, their generation cut down on the fields of Peilingor and Elessa. Thus they kept their lonely vigil over the death throes of the kingdom they had sworn to never abandon.
They clasped hands, offering each other farewell, all knowing that this might be the last moment to ever saw of each other. The road ahead was uncertain but then it always had been. How many times had they faced death and yet here they were, alive when so many others had fallen?
Once more he was alone, maintaining the city’s deathwatch. He must leave soon. When the enemy had sated their rage and hatred on the city they would spread out into the rest of the kingdom and bring an end to any they found. By then he and the child should be well on their way to safety. Despite this knowledge something held him here, as if he needed to wait for something……
There was guilt in his heart. While they shared no blood those men were his brothers and to lie to them now hurt him as much as to watch the city burn. He thought of his secret love, waiting for him in the south and it gave him a glimmer of contentment in this night of horror. He would go to her now, not to Mannessah-of-the-Oceans, nor Norecraalia, not anywhere in the Bastionlands. He could not have told his brothers this, for they could never have understood. Their first loyalty, their only love, was to the steel, the warrior’s bride, and not to wife.
To his left a hooded figure materialized from the shadows. His mount spooked for a moment but a soft touch and spoken murmur quietened the beast as the figure approached him silently. The child in his arms began to cry once more. The person pushed back the cowl and he gazed upon that familiar face. He had known her a long time, nearly all his life. He remembered the first time he had met her - he had been just a boy really, living an easy carefree life half a world away from here. Despite her absence of years, her face, as always, was unchanged, unlined by age although he knew she carried the worries of the world upon her slender frame. Dark, beautiful eyes regarded him, unblinking, looking deep into his soul, seeing what man he was. She dressed simply now, a dark blue cowl covering her hair, so different to the elegance and fineries he was accustomed to seeing her in. This was a different place however, a different time, and Akhenaten knew it, a different world. She smiled slightly but her smile held little warmth. How could there be any happiness on a night such as this?
“I knew you would remain, even as the others flee to safety” she told him “were you ever Jedennah’s most loyal and trusted captain”
The man’s eyes closed for just a moment.
“What good did that loyalty serve?” he replied, his voice full of the bitterness raging inside him “other great men served him, and in the end they all failed him, at Dsjeille, and Peilingor and Elessa …until it brought us to here, to this place , to this horror..”
He gestured towards the burning city. Already he could see that the enemy had begun their assault on the Inner Citadel. The Heart Guard would fight well on this night, defending the King and Queen with their last breaths, but even they would not prevail against such numbers of foe. They had been his men once. He had led them at Dsjeille, saving the King from sure death upon that bloody field and earning himself a high position among Jedennah’s councillors. He knew all of them, every man and woman, all sworn to the King’s life, and knew all of them would die there, defending what could not be defended.
The woman sighed.
“Jedennah trusted too much in the good of men. He thought courage and honour would deliver his kingdom from this host but that was not to be his fate. His fate is tied with his kingdom and with Eldessa and tonight, all three will perish”
“You talk of him as if he is dead already”
Despite the years he had known her, the inhuman coldness she displayed at times still dismayed him. He had given up his life for her, a sister he would never see again, a world he could never return to and yet he did not truly know her. He felt the doom pulling at him, the weight of a hundred battles and defeats crashing down upon his head.
She moved closer to him and the child, gliding silently across the rough ground
“Be at peace my brave captain. Jedennah has made his decision and I cannot alter that. He does what he thinks is right. What King can suffer life without a kingdom to rule?”
“Is there nothing you can do?” he asked her desperately
She shook her head sadly
“I am a thousand leagues away, at Lar Riocht. You see before you only my shadow. If I had had time the Druids could have cast me here and I could aid in the defence of the city. Now it is too late.”
For a moment her form flickered, confirming her words. Her physical form was far away and despite her powers there was little she could do now. Her hand reached up and gently touched the crying child’s cheek. Her touch was insubstantial but the child gave a slight shiver at the contact and ceased crying. Both of them watched the quietened child for a moment..
“Gar-Lyocksaar stirs with new purpose. This horror is but one facet of it. The Orlockan nations are tearing at each other. The Mountain and River have joined under the Great Devourer once more and make war upon the Plains. As it was before the Entombment they seek to bring all of the Sakhm’Yvar under His dominion. Tyr-Tanindul is but an opening play, a brief skirmish at the beginning of battle. Even here, in Lar Riocht His minions have been busy. Blood has been spilled among the Isleborn. Cruchoch has murdered the Queen and has been executed”.
The warrior shuddered. He had known Cruchoch, had fought with him when the Elves had given Tyr-Tanindul aid at Peilingor. He had been a great warrior, an honourable one. How could be had been given to such evil?
“Our enemy is stirring from His sleep. His Entombment was only a temporary measure. The true battle has yet to begin. I will have need for you now, more than ever – armies must be raised and led, kings gathered in council, ancient Orders readied. You will rise my captain. The world will know your name!”
He shook his head.
“Old words lady. Uttered by you to other great men. The Oathbreaker, Sewn Lhar Dashyll. They have all fallen”.
He could see the anger in her eyes from hearing such words. Few men would dare speak to her of such things. Perhaps she could feel the d
eceit that lay within his heart. The world knew her powers, how she could see deep into the hearts of men and know their greatest horrors and their deepest lusts and ambitions. If she could see into him now she would kill him. He had served her faithfully for many years and yet he knew with absolute clarity that she would kill him here and now if she could. He looked back down at the child, avoiding her eyes.
“Is he the one you have been waiting for?”
“Perhaps”
As always she gave little away. Her mind would always be a mystery to him as it had been to countless others.
“It is time. The balefire below holds me but the road is long and treacherous. I must go lady..”
She nodded gravely.
“Ride fast my captain, ride true. I shall find you and your brothers in Norecraalia by spring”. Keep the locket I gave you safe, it will help me find you should events demand it”.
He grasped the small silver locket around his neck in confirmation. She had given it to him on their first meeting in Crandoria so long ago. The first of many subsequent strings she would tie to him in his years of service that followed. He bowed to her in the saddle and spared one last took at the dying city, feeling strangly empty now.
“In the spring lady…”
A new fire rose up from the heart of the city and a wave of screaming carried through the night air, the sound of many people dying within the flames. The war chants of the enemy, muted until now, rose in a new crescendo, a dread confluence created with the cries of the dying.