Ghosts of Varav: prologue

The prologue to the story Ghosts of Varav. Check out and help me make this become better!

The man stepped upon the stage he stood with a heroic aura as his shoulder length black hair laid still save for the small amount of wind that was generated by the speed by which he walked. The man surveyed the crowd of 20000 that had gathered, it was nearly all the population of Fort Varav that remained.

“Kinsmen, for 90 years we have been holding our ground! But we are losing this war! We are surrounded by a foe who seeks our heads to place on spikes! They show no mercy for young, or old.

If we hold onto the so called safety of our defences we will perish, just as the ancient kind.” The man said. The reference to ‘the ancient kind created a low murmur among the crowd. To them ‘the ancient kind was only real in myths and stories, a people who could travel the stars, who ruled the night sky.

“The hope in our walls has faded. Yet as it faded another source of hope grew brighter, the hope that lies beyond the walls! The walls of Ft. Varav have become the walls of our tomb!” his voice grew stronger as he continued, the purpose that he had was becoming clear to all in attendance. He wanted to make a last ditch effort to escape Ft. Varav.

“We must risk it all… just for a chance. What I ask of you is not easy, nor can I tell you that it will work, but I can tell you that if we stay…” he trailed off. Everyone knew what he was going to say, that they would all die horrible deaths, most begging for death by the end of it. The newly called ‘Wil-fol’ or wild folk were former subjects of the Zalvakan Empire but now they were savages.

“I have seen what happens when the Wil-fol invade, I survived the eastern fall. Few made it out, I Farim was one of them. I risked everything to save me and my son. Now we all must risk everything we hold dear to us to make it out alive. Together we can overcome any obstacle!” he cried out challenging the racism between the species that had existed for all time.

“In a few moments the Dwalik clock will strike 12 and the year 1555 will begin. May 1555 Be our Year!”

He cried tone changing from a low yell to a voice used only for placing a rage into ones heart.

“TWELVE THOUSAND MEN! (In Ponvurn) FIFTEEN HUNDRED PONVURN! (In Dwalik) SEVEN THOUSAND DWALIK!” he cried calling upon the three predominate races living in Ft. Varav.

“TWENTY THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED VARAVANS!” he called out, the first to ever group any of the races together in recorded history.

“We are all Varavan!” he said in the common tongue.

He then repeated himself first in Ponvurn and then in Dwalik.

Farim glanced at the clock, 1 minute till mid night, ‘time to show them a taste of the ancients who gave birth to all intelligent life on Erla’ he thought.

He then unsheathed his sword and then pressed some sort of button.

The blade began to glow as small bolts of lightning danced all over the blade.

“I have been to the homes of the ancients. They were advanced beyond our wildest dreams, they came from the stars and were cast low, until they died out and became us. They called themselves human, and their technology makes this sword a conduit of electricity. Their ships sailed not on water but on air and nothing. They called themselves a ‘space-faring’ race. Long ago, during the construction of the battlements, workers stumbled onto a cave, it was long and winding, it lead to the ancient and forgotten metropolis of Sarvo. Now empty and desolate save for their machines. Shall our spirits join theirs wandering empty halls?!?” he asked. What he had just told them didn’t make sense to them. However Farim knew that it didn’t have to make sense to them, just boost their spirits or set a fire behind them to make them give their all.

The Dwalik Grand Clock directly behind Farim struck 12. Just like that 1554 turned into 1555

It rang out twelve times and yet once it chimed for the twelfth time silence fell over the crowd. 20500 souls in a room and not one of them made a sound. For five minutes.

Finally Farim spoke, shattering the silence that had covered the crowed like a layer of fog.

“VARAVANS ARE YOU WITH ME!?!” Farim asked screaming as loud as he could.

The crowd responded with a single powerful cheer.

“then we are all of us to try and make it out alive!” Farim said hiding his growing fear. It was not of his death that was staring him in the eye, but rather that of his sons.

Now Farim sword and shield in hand. His amulet dangling from his neck charged forth through the crowd.

“YOU’RE LEFT! YOU’RE LEFT!” one of the few surviving soldiers cried out. The desperate mob of people were swarming through the doors of the fort, the Wil-fol thinking that those doors would never open until not a single soul was alive in Ft. Varav were shocked. A few did manage to grab a weapon and fight back but most were sleeping.

“FARIM! ABOVE YOU! ON THE LEDGE!” the Ponvurn leader cried out as nearly a hundred Wil-fol jumped down cutting Farim off from the rest.

He had stayed making sure that the children made it out safely as the women had also taken arms against the Wil-fol.

Farim and a few guards were forced back into the Fort that now as the defences inside had been abandoned was being overrun. Eleven plus him he counted as they darted from street to street.

“We have to make for the passage to Sarvo, it’s our only hope!” he cried. The area he knew it was in had been devoid of any denizen for more than a century, a strange creature lived there, unseen to all as they appeared to be part of the wall.

“Get the door.” Farim said panic overtaking him. The creatures were coming to life and the tortured screams of Wil-fol began to echo in the caves.

The doors opened just before the first creature sprang forth.

None of them got far and the charge in Farim’s sword slowly drained away, it did however keep the creatures at bay for just long enough that they could shut the doors. They were all fatally wounded, bleeding out they passed one by one not knowing if their gamble had succeeded and their people made it away. It had in fact gotten more than half out alive. They traveled far to the east and took residence in the abandoned city of Ere’Lkire

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