Chapter One
End of an Era
“Tell me Sayul do you think your son will remember you?”
The flames crackled with intensity as the searing heat rose along with the lust of the rapacious need of the fire to consume more of the wood stacked against the stake that Sayul was bound to. He no longer twisted to be free of his bonds, but with a stony expression he stood still as the flames rose higher even as the skin of his legs felt the burn of the rising heat.
Begrudgingly he spoke, “It matters not Ryntal. My son is in Jehovah’s keeping. I worry not for his future, but you should! What has been foretold will come to be again!”
“You speak of old fables, fool. The time of the prophets has long since come and gone. You, a warrior of the Fire Spirit, should know this and yet here you are aflame!” Ryntal threw back his head and laughed as with a combusting woof of intensity flames soared into the night sky completely engulfing the stake that Sayul was bound to.
Sayul was not the only one set ablaze in the night. Many other stakes had long since been set ablaze and yet, his would not be the last as there was nothing to stop the rule of the Dolerian Auranto now that the last army of the resistance lay decimated upon the field of a once prosperous stretch of farmland, now forever stained by the blood of martyrs united against a collaboration of tyranny that stretched the length of all the seven lands of the world of Walenthyana.
The Roalain Plains, once known as the Land of the Light, had now become a byword for darkness as the last hopes of a people holding on to the old ways were extinguished one by one like torches in the night. Ryntal looked out over a wasteland of burnt crosses and felt deep satisfaction. No more would the Dolerian High Council have their plans held in check because of the meddling of the warriors of Roalain as even now, the last one of any noteworthyness was nothing but a fiery halo in the gathering darkness of night.
Ryntal turned about euphorically as the eminence of the moment of success swept through him. A sense of giddiness at the reward promised to him by the masters of his fate swept through him so strongly that it was with dismay that he heard the sharply exclaimed warnings issuing forth from the gathered throng of killers that stood about the grisly scene of a brave man’s death.
Hand on his sword he turned only to be knocked over by a mass of flame. The figure wreathed in flames spoke, with a will that would not die, smoke peeled away at his words as a hand bathed in the pressed upon flames of his enemies clutched Ryntal’s throat savagely even as the words of a father rang out in foreknowledge beyond the knowing of the sorcerers of the High Council, “My son has a story! Mark it well and tell the others! You will never see the last of our kind, son of hell!”
With a pained cry of fright and intense agony Ryntal shoved forcefully and the body of the last fire warrior catapulted away and then slipped over the edge to tumble down the slopes of the Gorge of Aratana. In anxiousness of fear Ryntal crawled forward to peer over the edge and watched as the man aflame tumbled downward bouncing off boulder and tree alike even as his passage set the hill on fire.
As Ryntal watched a breeze caught the dry grass of the slope fully alight and with a vengeful crackle it roared upwards and shot over the edge of the plateau. Men and their half human counterparts fell back with exclamations of concern even as Ryntal rolled about on the ground in an effort to put out his clothes that had caught on fire.
Coughing on breathed in smoke he touched at his flame scalded throat in fearful dismay. The skin of his neck lay melted into the handprint of his greatest nemesis. A token of him that he would always bear and with savage anguish over his lost vanity Ryntal cried out, “Help me up you cowards!”
Members of his command rushed forward and once more on his feet Ryntal limped to the edge of the slope that now lay charred black. No sign of Sayul remained, but no man could survive lit on fire as he had been.
That said, warriors of the Fire Spirit were not like other men and fire prophets were entirely worse yet. A man the caliber of a prophet could defeat an army by himself and a good thing it was that no such man yet lived within all the seven lands of Walenthyana.
That had always been the fear for the Dolerian High Council, but now conquered, these people of the Roalain Plains would never again be motivated by a man that bore the fire of the old God. It had been a long time since such a man had lived and now there would not be another.
Soon every last vestige of this land of soaring meadows and green gabled hills would hear the cries of alm singing to the fallen Dogerians, whom every Dolerian witch and warlock paid homage to as it was them that had freed them from the old ways and opened to them the forbidden powers of Eloah, the old God. The world of Walenthyana no longer bore the old God’s temples and soon the belief in Him would cease altogether.
Truly He was for the most part already forgotten throughout the five known lands. Now that the sixth land had fallen, all that remained was the most mysterious of all the lands combined. Angarta, a land of forests that breathed and spoke with a mind of its own. A land shrouded in mist and the terror of unknown powers not seen so prevalent anywhere else in the world. It was that land that now stretched out before him beyond the base of the slopes of the Gorge of Aratana. No doubt some of the Rolainians had fled into it, but they would soon become lost and those who lingered on would never dare show themselves again in any of the six lands beyond the last land of Angarta.
Ryntal turned his gaze away from the forest of myth and legend to Vorlock his second-in-command and croaked out, “The boy, do we have him yet?”
“No, but we have his mother, my Liege.” Vorlock added at the last with pleasure.
Ryntal smiled, but winced as it caused his melted skin to pull painfully, “Good!” He said savagely.
“I’m going to keep her warm in Sayul’s absence. She’ll experience what Dolerian might and unity is all about. Come my brothers! I’ll let you all have a turn with her after I’m done.”
In glee the massed ranks of his officers cobbled together from all the lands of Dolerian unity followed in his wake with eagerness. The wolfmen of Orzanzan howled, even as the trolls of Tanerin beat at their chests. Ryntal’s voice rumbled deeply with laughter at the cacophony of lustful eagerness.
The purification of the Rolainians would be completed this night as every last woman of their birth line was seeded with the mixed creeds of man, demon, and animal alike. Truly the offspring resulting from this night’s encounter would be quite the sons of Sartan, or as the Rolainians called them, the Sons of Damnation.
Fitting justice would be served this night and an end to the tyranny of belief in the Fire Spirit would be completed. Truly, it was cause for celebration as the fifth age of Walenthyana had only just begun.
It would be the last age, even as tonight was the last night for any hope of deliverance for the people now scattered to the four winds and devoid of the strength to regroup and create what had falsely been prophesied to occur in the latter days. No, the Dolerian Auranto conspiracy had conquered all and now ruled the day in uncontested unity across the breadth of the six lands.
Angarta alone remained, but it was inhabited by no man and few if any of any other kind. You had to be a beast of savagery to survive there and such beasts had a way of devouring the easy prey that an escaped slave represented to them. Still, like all the other lands, Angarta must fall too and there were plans as to how that would be accomplished even now.
Tonight however, was to be a night of revelry and songs sung to the might of the fallen Dogerians, even as the shadows danced from the burning embers of a thousand stakes now all but burnt to the ground as silent witnesses to the plight of the survivors of the last battle of the Rolainians. A battle that had been hundreds of years in the making but had culminated tonight in a defeat that would never be undone.
*******
Uma twisted at her chain in the fire lit darkness as she breathed out prayer after prayer to Eloah. Finally the wood that she pried against broke.
The chain fell to the ground and gave her the leeway that she needed to reach the metal piece of broken Rolainian sword steel that lay upon the ground in silent witness to the last shattering of Rolainian pride that had occurred this awful day. Twisting the shard of steel into the lock she felt it pop open even as blood coursed from her fingers that gripped the still sharp piece of a sword forever broken.
The chain slipped through the link fastened about her wrists and in exclamation of triumph the chain soon snaked through the links of all the others. Uma bent down and picked up a battle ax that lay upon the bloodsoaked ground of their once beautiful land.
Raising up to her full height she gestured to the other women who had come to stand before her equally armed with the dropped remnants of a war from foe and relative alike. “Go those of you who are able! Go now into Angarta! Shame be upon you if you ever forget as to who you are! Those of you who, like me, cannot face another day in the wake of what has occurred this night come with me!”
Uma turned and strode forward over the field of lost causes that had once heralded a farmer’s simple existence and nothing else more spectacular, but that now featured the last act of defiance by a people who simply refused to change with the times. Hated they were the world wide, but freedom was a concept few grasped, but to them they had known it all their lives.
Charging forward now with a savage cry Uma jumped upward to bury the ax she wielded into the head of a troll to slow to swing his club. Black blood spurting Uma spun away to chop into a Hergalian Elfman and growled into his face with intensity even as she herself was held transfixed on his rapier styled sword blade that had passed completely on through her.
The elfman’s eyes glazed over and he fell backward taking his rapier styled blade with him. Uma remained on her feet tottering with the weakness of her blood loss that only compounded the loss that she already felt in her heart for all that had once been, but would never be again. With her last manageable effort of will she drew the axe back and let it fly. The action drove her to her knees and falling forward her forehead hit the ground.
Each breath coming hard to her she blinked as the sounds of war diminished all around her. As if seeing into another place she breathed out, “Run into the forest my son! Run until you grow tired of it. Then return. Return and avenge what has befallen us this day!”
Uma blinked, as tears fell from her face to kiss the ground, “No my son! Forget what I say! Live apart from this madness. Be happy and learn the ways of the forests of Angarta, until it too is taken away as a sanctuary for our children to hide in. Oh Eloah forgive us our sins and spare our children!” Uma cried out emotionally into the dust of the ground.
“Mother?”
Uma’s eyes opened in alarm, only to relax as she sensed the voice that she’d heard came from her spirit and not from close by. Brokenly she responded, “I love you, Tarik! Run! Never return here! You must do as I say!”
“Mother I need you!!!” But Uma had already drifted away into a realm past the ability to hear let alone feel any more pain. The chiefest of all known pains though had just manifested to full life within the heart of a boy lost within the forest he had always been forbidden to enter.
The loss of the connection in spirit with his mother was the last straw and dissolving into tears a son of a prideful people dropped to his knees and bawled out his grief in wracking sobs that caused the trees of Angarta to crack and grumble with discomfort.
He was alone! Truly alone.
A branch wiped across his face with a touch as soft as a passing feather and in startlemeant Tarik drew back as grief was forgotten for the moment. The branch retreated to form a comehither motion even as a breeze that bore the fragrance of early summer’s flowers whispered, “Come little warrior. Don’t forget your father’s sword. You will have need of it I’m afraid. Where we’re going is not so friendly at all anymore and yet I still remember a time when it was, but that was a very very long time ago.”
Tarik rose up to his feet as what he’d taken to be a small flowering tree began to move away through the forest leaving a trail of spent blooms in its wake to mark its trail. Dragging the tip of a sword taller than he was himself Tarik moved forward and followed the path of petals that led deeper and deeper into the heart of Angarta. A new era of his life had begun and it was terrifying, but at least he was not as alone as he had thought he was.