The Legend

This is a story about a battle before a war.

Years after the greatest war of them all, there was peace.   Earth is now a paradise, a looming paradox of fearlessness and love and peace, after the came.  The Riders......

They came from the west, a horde of vile men that could devour entire cities and villiges in a matter of days, if not hours.  Their metal beasts, their arrowless bows that shot out hot molten metal could slice through anything it seemed. 

 

We were and still are striving to be simple people, with only one thing on our minds........ peace.  That is all that we wanted, since what happened an age ago, when our forefathers fought in a great war. My grandfather's father was that such man.  He was thought to have fought in that war and passed on the legendary story to his son, then to my father, who before dying passed it on to me, and this is how it was said to have happened.

 

Two clans, the Tyhms, which are us, simple farm folk, who do not believe in heavy weaponry.  We live and die by God.  We do not have high technology as our western brethern do.  We believe in God as the father and nurturer of this earth.  We do not gather profit, except the profit of living with each other and sharing each other's harvest.  We yearly have a boutiful feast after the harvest.  We kill the fattest cows and the rippest chickens, turkeys, sheep and fish out the fattest salmon.  We cook and then we eat.  We share each other's fruits and vegetables and say the prayer.

 

However, on the other side, which are called the Riders, men who die by their guns.  Men who would rather devour each other than share a bone with the next guy.  They live my feeding off the fear of others, and they eat by devouring unclean meats.  They sometimes, according to legend, resort to cannibalism.  If one man is hurt or wounded, they would serve them up and devour them.  Instead of living on farms and simple housing arrangements, they live in metal boxes that have gigantic plates on top of them that swirl around.  They call them satellites, and that way, still according to legend, are contacting false gods that they have planted in the heavens.  It is said that their gods can loom down and see us, and watch our every move.

 

My grandfather's father was named Steven Goodykoontz.  He was a brave man, who excelled in many arts and talents.  He had a beautiful wife and two sons, who would oneday lead to me.  The sons' names were Tad, and Tuomar.  Tuomar is my grandfather.  He is the leader of the clan, and he is duty bound to protect this rich land from any evil that may want to destroy us.  He is a God fearing man as well.  He spends hours daily praying and interceding for his people.  He wants nothing but peace for this place.

God has love for Steven and has given him gifts and weapons that can help him excell.  First of all, God has granted Steven the gift of foresight.  He could foresee what was about to happen before it really happened.  That is why this place was not raveged by the mighty Rider clan.  He was also granted access to a being that was strong and mighty.  He was free to breed this animal and make it a weapon against any attack.  It was the Great Dragon.  The Great Dragon was agout fourteen feet high, and was about eight feet across.  It weighed about two tons and could desolate a population if needed.  Steven used those dragons to cirlce around his villiage and protect it.  Steven had in his arsenol, about 200 dragons.

 

However, the Riders, had a leader as equally great as Steven.  His name is Lucifer.  By legend, he once was a man who would sing praises to God.  He was the top angel in Heaven.  However, he was haughty.  He wanted to be God, so he tried to overthrow him, but failed.  He was cast down to the most desolate and barren part of the Earth, where, there were bones of ancient soldiers and machinery.  They possesed the old bodies and brought them back to life and they were bound to destroy God's children and take over the planet and stand against God. 

Fortunately for us, God saw this and gave us weapons to combat them.  They were not weapons as sophisticated as their's, but they were a lot stronger.  Swords made from diamonds, cheriots made from titanium and dimonds.  Horses that were full of holy fire that could run as fast as any metal beast.  We also have dragons, which I have already talked about, which actually held two purposes, the Riders had metalic flying dragons that spit metals of fire and launched exploding fireballs to the Earth.

 

The Battle all started when Steven got a message from God saying that the Riders would attack when we least expect it.  He quickly ordered night and day men to watch the heavens, and released 100 Dragons to roam the skies, and would interchange them with the other 100 every night.  He would put people on shifts to watch for the Riders and wait.  However, they did not come.  Steven stayed strong in the word and kept his faith all the way through the summer. 

 

When fall came, and the leaves on the trees turned, and the pumpkins became gigantic and turned orange, it was harvest time, and according to law, nobody is to work on that day.  Even the dragons got to have a meal in their cages.  We killed the fattest cows, which was about 20, and killed 15 fat turkeys and chickens, and fished out a whopping 200 fish from the river.  We prepared it and cooked it.  We sat down at the great table and as the preparers were serving us our meals, they came.  The Riders.  Steven knew now what God's warning was.  He let down his guard for one day and the Riders were now raveging through the villiage buring out houses and killing all our livestock.  We managed to get out swords and unleash our dragons to fend off the small number of Riders.  However, the damage was done.  Most of our fields were burned and the substanance throughout the winter would probably not be enough for the winter months.  Over half of our livestock were killed and mangled to where the meat was unsalvageable.  

 

All the people prayed to God asking him why he let this happen.  Steven got the answer, "It was your fault for letting this atrocity happen."  The people were stunned and turned away from God.  They despised him for what had happened, but Steven stayed strong.  He pleaded to God to help his people out and give them a hand.  God found favor in Steven's faith.  The grounds lifted up new crop and new cows began to show up on the farm by the gross.  Chickens layed twenty times the eggs, and turkeys seemed to have come from nowhere.  The people quickly came back to God, and prayed for forgivness of what they had done.  Then they rejoiced.

 

However, the next month, it was training.  Men were trained by the sword to fight back at the menace that tried to rid of us.  Steven, and his best men trained the townfolk men how to use a bow and arrow, catipults and use the sword and shield.  Some men were able to use slings, axes and spears.  For a whole month, men were challenged and drilled to do such things.

 

Then, we attacked.  We walked 200 miles, which was a ten day journey over the harshed terrain ever.  No men died or were hurt thanks to God almighty.  We brought all 200 dragons and left a few men to fend off the camp.  When the men arrived at the Rider's villiages, they were met by fierce men, some were giants.  They had red eyes, and their breath stank of brimstone, and fire shot from their mouths as they spoke.

 

"MEN!" yelled Steven.  "God is on our side, do not fear what you see, God is on our side!"

The soldier's cheered and raced into battle.  We shot our catipults and our dragons flew over and sprayed fire over groups of Riders.  Then, the tanks came.  Their metal beasts were strong, none of our men's weapons were any match for them.  Our dragons could not burn them, and our catipult balls just bounced off their hides.  We thought our number was up. 

The tanks rolled over some men and killed them, and some destroyed the catipults, however, one thing could stop them.  We could jam spears into the spinning cogs that made the beasts run and they would be stalled and rendered useless.  Steven ordered all the spearmen to jam their spears into the cogs and were were able to render the tanks useless. 

 

We fought for days without letting up and we did our best to fight.  At times we thought we were done for, and at times were were after the retreating Riders.  However, on the last day of the battle, the planes zoomed overhead and blasted holes into our ranks and destroyed a lot of men and horses.  We managed to use the dragons to use their fire breath and take some down, but some dragons died in the process.  However, we got the upperhand, and all the planes were shot down.

 

"HALT!" yelled Lucifer from atop of a great mound of rocks.  "I will fight your leader!  "If he is able to slay my body, I will leave!"

"I take your challenge," Steven said.  "I do not fear you.  You will become a snake under my foot and I will smash your head."

 

Lucifer drew his sword and Steve his.  Lucifer struck first with a side blow, but Steven was about to block it with his mighty diamond sword.  Steven swung back, but was blocked, just as Lucifer let off, the demon flung down and tried to cut Steven in half with an upper blow.  Steven stepped out of the way and swung back with a downward blow, which cut Lucifer's arm.  As Lucifer was examining his arm, Steven then lunged and planted his sword right into Lucifer's side, and sliced up.  Lucifer fell, bleeding.

Steven looked down, and saw a spirit come out from Lucifer's body.   But then, a light shown down onto the land, and fried the whole hordes of the Rider.  The Rider's were no more.

 

That is what the Legend is said to be. 

Author's Note

This is good!!!!

Reviews

[Michael Carr]

it's ok. you need to work on the style. you tell your details far too often then showing. the dialogue is a bit stiff as well. could use a bit more development of the sharacters and story too. however it's an interesting enough idea that with work could pan out well. well done.