“the Inner Citadel is falling lady, this is the end” he told her sadly as he finally turned his horse away.Now, he wanted nothing more than to get away. To flee this horror, the woman beside him and the dark dreams that threatened to consume him. As he departed the woman’s final words followed him.
“……….this is not the end, this is the beginning of everything”
He rode south, death upon his shoulder.
Part 1- Illrycharra
The Boy
The village of Brijian’s Wells had stood for nearly a hundred years though few people outside of the village would know such a thing. There was little remarkable about this small place which was practically indistinguishable from any other village or hamlet in the great kingdom of Illrycharra. In fact, of all the seven Darran villages, as they were known, Brijian’s Wells did not shine brighter than any of the rest. Its people, of which there were some forty families who were proud to name themselves of Brijian’s Wells, and not of Darra, the walled town that lay five leagues east, faithfully tilled their fields year in year out. They sowed, ploughed and harvested, raised chickens and pigs, and paid their annual tithe to their lord, the Erudel of Darra.
Men had only dwelled in these lands three hundred years, the last of a long series of invaders and settlers. Before man Illrycharra had been ruled by the savage Sakhm’Yvar race, the Tuath’ai and before even them the Dwarven kingdom of Glyndwr had flourished here before its doom. Before the Dwarves who knew? Perhaps even the Elves and other Glenduirian races had once made their home here among the forests and hills.
The great pasturelands lay to the north of Illrycharra where the great lords raised their cattle in their tens of thousands, fattening them on the rich green grasses that grew there, before driving them south, down the length of the kingdom, to the lucrative southern markets. Beyond the pasturelands lay Illrycharra’s world-famous bone-pits, hundreds of leagues of endless bones and skeletons of fearsome beasts from some calamitous battle a thousand years ago. The stories spoke of a great battle between Dwarves and Giants here, when Glyndwr was forged and the bones were all that remained of the Dwarves’ vanquished enemies…
Beyond the endless snow-capped mountains lay the northlands of Sakhm’Yvar. There dwelled the barbaric Orlockan Nations, their lands stretching across the entire roof of the world such was their dominion. They did not trouble Illrycharra or the other lands of the south though they were the greatest and most savage of all the Sakhm’Yvar. The mountains that sealed the northern reaches from the rest of the world were too high, their paths too treacherous, to allow for any casual war to be prosecuted across their vastness. Also, the Orlockans themselves, though strong and martial, were a divided people, their races sundered into five great nations, and of those nations each one was further rendered into so many tribes and septs. Thus, Illrycharra, endured with this shadow to the north, watchful of the northern mountains and their passes yet holding its strength to the west, where the loathsome Tuath’ai, their ancient foe, lay.
Like all of the Illrycharran people the folk of Brijian’s Wells were descended from settlers from the Bastionlands kingdoms, who in turn were descended from the High-Ankhamunite peoples of the Mikidemian lands and the proud Yurathians of the deep north. Therefore, though Illrycharra had only been founded three centuries ago, and ruled by a king of less than a hundred, the blood of its people was ancient and proud. Despite such renowned heritage the common folk of the village were neither remarkable nor well-known, they did no great deeds, no songs were composed recounting their lives, no traveller passing through the village along the old Dwarven road, rarely spared the village a second glance….
And yet it was at Brijian’s Wells that the story of Saul began, and in time, and not such a long time, everyone in the north, and indeed the world, would come to know of the village of Brijian’s Wells and the boy who grew to me a man there.
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It was a day like any other.
It was early spring and the last vestiges of winter could still be felt in the crisp morning air and in the ice-hardened soil that still stubbornly refused to be ploughed. The village of Brijian’s Wells had endured a long winter, a season of belt tightening where the old folk and young ones alike kept close to their fires. Now the warmth of the sun had returned and the farmers of the village were busy in their fields, tilling the earth in preparation for the planting and the nourishing spring rains that, gods’ willing, would come after. Some of them would join the Erudel’s warband this spring and march west to join the endless campaigns against the hated enemy, the Tuath’ai. The peace and tranquillity of the east was always maintained by the battle and blood of the western frontier. The men of Brijian’s Wells knew this better than most for they and many of the men from the Darran villages, had spent their youth fighting on the western marches during those dark times some years before.
Two men, father and son, worked hard in the chill morning air, preparing their meagre farm for the planting. The work has hard and the absence of a third pair of hands, a second son and younger brother, was sorely felt. As they worked the older son muttered curses under his breath, his ire building towards his absent brother. His father however, was more forgiving of his errant son. He could remember when he too had been but a boy and the responsibilities and duties of adulthood had seemed mere distractions to a life filled with joy and adventure. That had been a lifetime ago, half a world away where men worshipped the sun as a living god and the cold of winter was only known in stories. In the years after that childhood spent under the sun he had learned what true winter was. Winters of cold winds and ice that could end a man’s life as surely a blade could and snow storms that could devour entire armies. Yes, he had seen true winters, filled with blood and ice, and hoped never to see them again. Because of those times he could forgive his youngest son’s transgressions on this day. His son would soon be a man and the gods only knew what cold darkness lay ahead for him. Better to find a few brief hours of happiness while the sun still shined….
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The boy dreamt.
He was in that place once again, that realm between wake and sleep. His misty dreams mingled with the brightness of a sun that warmly caressed his closed eyes. As always when her entered this strange kingdom he dreamt of his mother. She moved through the trees, almost floating, calling to him and he drifted towards her. Everything was bright and golden and out of focus in an overpoweingly strong light. The leaves on the trees shone like gold ingots, the sky a shimmering silver. It almost blinded him yet he carried on, reaching for her. He could see her, and yet her features were obscured, his memory failing to realize his dream to completion. Her hair was gold like the sun but her eyes, he could not see her eyes. Once he might have remembered their colour, once he might have remembered every detail of her face. Now though, he had forgotten, and his dreams of her diminished in detail with every passing year….
He ran through the trees, chasing her, but not matter how hard he ran, how hard he pushed himself she always just lay ahead of him, forever out of reach. As he ran something in the ephemeral forest began to change, to shift. Something dark and alien had entered the forest, unbidden. The intense light slowly began to give way to a growing darkness, a shadow that grew from nowhere and spread across his consciousness. It covered the shimmering forest and his mother was consumed within its inky cloak.
Before him the darkness coalesced into a towering person, their form indistinct apart from red balefull eyes that bore into him. The heat of the sun died and suddenly the world grew dark and cold, an endless twilight. The apparition breathed his name though it had no mouth..
“Saul…………”
A fear gripped him, a primal fear, unnamed and terrible, ripping at the very centre of him. The world shook and the demon reached towards him, red eyes burning with a hatred matched equally with a covetous longing. The boy moaned.
“Saul!”
He opened his eyes, blinking. His frien
d Krishan stood over him, blocking out the sunshine and shaking him awake. He sat up, the dream dissipating from his consciousness, his mother and the demon equally forgotten. He had fallen asleep in the warmth of the morning sun, his fishing pole and a knapsack lying beside him. Krishan grinned at him.
“Your father will be angry as the three hells with you!”
Saul grinned faintly back, a whisp of the dream still floating around in the back of his mind. He had been waiting for Krishan at the edge of the forest after sneaking out of the cottage in early morning. As usual Krishan had been late and Saul had fallen asleep waiting for him to turn up.
He allowed his friend to help him up.
“My father never stays angry for long, Garan on the other hand….”
Krishan laughed and slapped Saul on the back.
“Well, best not to think of it and enjoy the day!”
Saul’s features clouded a little for just a moment as he thought of his father and brother. The springtime had brought the usual labours of farmwork – day after day of planting the fields alongside his father and older brother. Each day the same as the next and every night the bone tiredness of the farmer’s life. Today however was going to be different – today he and Krishan were going to sneak off and go fishing – Krishan escaping his job as kitchen boy at the Elders’ Hall and Saul the family farm.
“Come on, the day is wasting”
Saul took the lead and the two boys headed into the forest.
They had come across the fishing spot two summers before on a similar day when they were exploring in the sparse forests surrounding the village. That day had been much like this one, a day for escape, an escape for one boy from the heat of the kitchen ovens and for another the stony soil of the farm. The small river, little more than a stream, contained little fish but was located just far enough away from the village that no casual observer would see them. Their spot lay on a slight bend in the river where some of the trees overhung offering a little shade from the rising sun. This was their special place, unknown to the other children of the village or even the adults. Little did they know but every few years for perhaps a century, this little stream had been ‘discovered’ by yet another generation of the village’s children. If they had cared to ask Simann, the Huntmaster, he would have told him of his own childhood, much of it spent around their special place.
As they walked and chatted Saul regarded his friend. Krishan was a little older than him but was a head shorter. His skin was dark brown, a gift of his father, a Valeman who had died when Krishan was just a small child. His eyes were slightly curved with a broad flat nose that gave way to a small mouth that seemed constantly set just so to show that Krishan was privy to some jest that no one else knew. It was little wonder that the two of them, one missing a father, the other missing a mother, would be thrown together. That and the fact that neither of them were the blood of Illrycharra – while Krishan’s late father had been a Valeman, Saul’s father was a Crandorian, originally from that great empire that lay so many thousands of leagues to the south. All northerners, Illrycharrans included, had a deep contempt for the soft southern peoples, especially the Crandorians, and people here cared little for the Empire of the Vale either. Saul well remembered the childhood taunts of ‘Black Valeman!’ directed at Krishan and the obligatory ‘puny little Crandorian’ directed at him. The curious thing was he had grown up big and tall, much taller than his father in fact.
Both of them dreamed of leaving Brijian’s Wells the same ambition of every young man who had ever grown up in such a small and unimportant farming hamlet. He and Krishan constantly talked of the great cities to the south, the Emerald Hill of Lhuasa, the fabled walls of Tiokan-an-Thana, the battlements and temples of Crandor and Norecraalia, the sacred groves of H-Faunia. They wanted to see them all, one day. There were few days when they did not discuss their plan to go prospecting in the great Meirionnydd mountains to the west, to search out ancient Dwarven cities and their lost treasure hoards. Sometimes he dreamed that he would find his mother up there, lost beneath the snowy peaks and jagged green valleys of some ancient Dwarven kingdom and not buried in the cemetery just outside of the village, taken by the Heart Fever four winters before like so many others.
Whether driven my the fact that both of them were outsiders, or that both had lost a parent, one remembered and one not, the two boys always wanted to leave Brijian’s Wells and find their fortune. Their ambition was an idle fancy however, a dream of children rather than any planned or considered action. For the most part, they were content, happy in the quiet familiarity of their home, with little real desire to put actions to their daydreams. For now they were happy to spend a day fishing near the village, talking of great ambitions, yet returning to their respective homes when the sun began to falter in the sky….
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By the small river the two boys idly fished.
Neither of the boys had caught anything so far and neither was trying very hard. His fishing pole held negligently in his left hand, Krishan stifled a yawn with the other.
“That Lord Ruadan…”
Saul grinned as Krishan launched into another lengthy diatribe about Lord Ruadan, the bane of the other boy’s life. The Lordling was the eldest son of Niam who was Erudel of Darra and much of the lands around it including Brijian’s Wells. The Lord and his family usually resided at Darra, a walled town an hour’s ride from Brijian’s Wells. Three months ago however, the father and son had quarrelled and the Lordling had left Darra to take up residence in Brijian’s Wells, or as some of the village elders called it ‘sulking’ in Brijian’s Wells. On arriving at the village the Lordling had demanded use of the Elder’s Hall, normally the residence of the village elders, and for the last three months, Ruadan and his companions, of which he had many, as ever a young lord always did have, proceeded to drink and feast themselves into epic proportions of debauchery, watched on by the bewildered and somewhat disapproving farming folk of the village. The Lordling already had an ill reputation. People spoke of trouble in Darra around Ruadan’s brutal nature and worried for the day he might succeed Niam as lord of these lands. Ruadan had ignored all summonses from his father since then and Krishan had found his employment changed from serving the kindly old village elders to being cupbearer to the young Lord. This ‘promotion’, as his mother insisted upon calling it, meant that Krishan had gone from a relatively easy, if boring, employment, to dealing with a rancorous and drunken crowd of lordings and hangers-on, some of whom were want to strike him around the ears if wine was not poured promptly and generously…..
Saul laughed
“I will trade you a day serving wine to those undesirables for a day of planting potatoes!”
“No trade” Krishan groused, then his features suddenly changed to one of excitement “ I forgot to tell you, a merchant caravan arrived this morning, it came all the way from Nestoria!”
Saul shrugged. Merchant caravans stopped at Brijian’s Wells all the time on their way to the city, sometimes from the Nestorian kingdoms to the south bringing gold and foodstuffs or the Dwarven Lowlands bringing steel and trade goods.
Krishan continued.
“Wilurn Hunna told me there is a Cataphractian escorting the caravan this time, not just the usual sellswords. He told me the knight has armour finer than the King’s Guard and……”
Saul scoffed. Cataphractians never came to Illrycharra and if they did they would not come to the Brijian’s Wells, least of all escorting some trade caravan from Nestoria. All the Cataphractians served in the Bastionlands under their liege-lord King Broderic holding back the Skald hordes from engulfing the southern realms..
Krishan saw Saul’s expression
“Well I am only repeating what Wilurn told me. I didn't see him myself but one of Ruadan’s guards said that the stranger could not be a Cataphractian – that he was more likely some sellsword from the Bastionlands – although he said he had the look of a Crandorian about him”.
“Wh
y would this Crandorian sellsword Cataphractian be guarding a merchant caravan in the back end of nowhere then?” Saul asked jokingly “….things must be very quiet in the Bastionlands if Broderic is sending off his warriors to guard wagons of turnips!”
Krishan’s expression changed to one of calculated pleasure. Saul knew that look of old.
“What Krishan…”
Krishan smiled evilly
“Oh nothing, just talking about Lord Ruadan earlier reminds me of something I meant to tell you……but I don't think you would be that interested anyways…”
Saul threw a small stone at his friend who deftly dodged it. With a small plop it went into the river.
“Come on Valeman!”
“Well remember you asked me to keep my ears open if the Lordling mentioned any hunting parties being organized in the near future…”
Saul sat up, suddenly alert now. For the last three years Tain had been teaching him how to use the shortbow just like his brother before him. Both Tain and Garan were experts with it and well known around the village as two of the village’s best hunters, only bested by the local Huntmaster, Simann. Three years Tain had been patiently teaching Saul, between the end of his chores on the farm and what little sunlight remained in the day. Three years Saul had been waiting to be taken on a hunt, three long years where Simann and his hunters had been most proficient in bringing back fresh meat and therefore not necessitating the village men organising a hunt. Saul had made do, hunting rabbits in the woods around the village, honing his skill and waiting for the day he would be allowed to go on a real hunt, to hunt deer and wild pig in the deeper forests along the Meirionnydd mountains. Three years was a long time to be hunting just rabbits.