Prologue

There was once a blight that strode the lands of Condriel...

Five hundred years ago, the dark gods Calbion and Chanara came together to spawn three half-mortal children; monsters in human form, with unholy gifts and talents. Deep in the forests of the North, the Three grew strong and powerful, cared for in the hidden temple of Calbion by the evil priests that worshipped him. Before long, the Three were ready to venture into Condriel, and begin its dominion in the name of their parents.

They began subtly, stealing Northmen and women from secluded homes, and dragging them back to the temple. The sick and elderly were quickly dispatched, sacrificed to Calbion, Chanara, and the depraved hungers of the Three. Those strong enough were forced into service; forging spears, axes and helms; rebuilding and expanding the temple until it was a towering stronghold. The Three grew stronger still, and soon, whole villages were taken to the temple to serve the dark ones. Those who pleased the Three were given positions of power, or taken into the beds of the Spawn. Those who failed to meet the high expectations and degraded standards set out were punished, brutally. For more than fifty years, the dark forests rang with the sounds of steel and blood. An army was being built, and the North grew darker every day.

Beyond the great Biarn Lake, through the cliff-banked pass towards the South, King Ollarin of Condriel knew he must meet this threat from the North, or all would fall to darkness. He gathered to him his knights, their vassals, their liege-men. Commoners and tradesmen joined his cause. A formidable army was formed.  From the great city of Avarial they marched, thousands armed with great-and-long swords, spears and shields, their armour shining. Archers brought up the rear, their great-bows gleaming with polish.

Ollarin knew his forces were powerful - powerful enough to defeat the army massing in the North; but what of the Three? Could anyone bring the demons down? Ollarin was plagued with doubts. At night in his tent, he sat staring at the flames of his many candles, wondering what to do. Condriel had known no gods for hundreds of years before the dark ones had re-emerged from the depths. But once, Ollarin had been taught, a god of strength and wisdom had commanded the love and respect of the people. He thought on this for many nights before making a choice.

He had never prayed, and had no idea how to begin. He was watching his flames when he realised that he must voice his most deeply-help fears aloud, and hope. On his knees, he raised his voice to the sky, and beseeched Eyre to save them; to aid their cause; to help him defeat the Three. He offered his own life if only the threat would be extinguished. The sky remained silent.

After six weeks of marching, they passed beyond the Biarn Lake, and into the North. The old roads were silent; the villages they passed empty. The men closest to Ollarin voiced their concerns to the king, and he knew they spoke for all the men when they told him how unnerved and troubled they were. But still they pressed on. The roads grew less rutted and more overgrown; the trees denser and taller. Ollarin and his commanders called for a halt in a wide valley and set up camp. Scouts were sent out, to determine the numbers they faced.

Their horses soon returned, their headless riders lashed to their mounts with their own guts. Ollarian and his army prepared for war.

They came in the night, and the stars watched as the trees became bathed in blood. The Three’s forces were many, but Ollarian’s army were better trained; soon the two armies became matched, and then the Northmen were outnumbered. Ollarin’s strength was still vital, but of the Three there was no sign. Where were they? Was Eyre awake and answering his prayers? He wasn’t sure.

The battle raged through the night and into the dawn, and eventually it was almost over. The dead were strewn all over the valley floor, and only a few Northmen were not slain. Ollarin was still afraid, however - and he was right to be.

The Three appeared at the top of the valley on massive warhorses, their faces hidden behind helms. The first wore emerald-enamelled armour, his muscles apparent against the plate-mail, a two-handed sword across his back. His mailed fists shone in the daylight with a glassy sparkle.

 The second had donned crimson, the scales of his armour lightweight and flexible; in his hand was a great, curved bow of ironwood. The quivers strapped to his back and saddle were, Ollarin noted with bewilderment, smoking.

The third was clad all in black leather - no scales or plate adorned the lithe form that, Ollarin realised with shock, was clearly female. An axe was strapped to each hip, sharp and deadly. Unlike her foul brethren, she seemed to have no obvious suspect traits - although a woman brandishing an axe was suspect enough for Ollarin.

The Three turned their horses towards Ollarin and the three commanders left to him; their gaze, even hidden behind helms, was piercing. They charged.

Ollarin stood his ground despite his fear, slashing with his b*****d sword at the foe. The commanders were quickly slain, and the King took an arrow to the thigh from the crimson rider. As it had flown towards him, it had been aflame, yet was whole and unscorched. Fighting the pain, he slashed at the horses, bringing them down with surprising ease. The Knights left of Ollarin’s army moved towards the now grounded Three, but Ollarin yelled for them to stay back. Something was not right; his sword arm had never felt so strong.

Steel met freezing steel as the green One rushed him; his hands, his sword, the emerald armour he wore, was coated in a thin layer of ice. Yet Ollarin parried with ease, and drove his hand-and-a-half sword through the reinforced helm into the face of the tall man-demon. The First fell with a scream of agony - but Ollarin took no notice. The heavy, hot ironwood bow of the Second was hurtling towards his head. Ollarin ducked, and then swung his sword; it hit the bow so hard the wood shattered, but the stroke continued - The Second’s head was stricken from his shoulders. Only the un-armoured woman remained.

She tore the half-helm from her head, and Ollarin recoiled. Red eyes flashed at him, whilst her black hair streamed in the wind. She drew the axes from her hips, hefting them in her hands as if testing the weight. She spun; her graceful form fluid in motion. She spun again, and suddenly was moving so fast, she could barely be seen. She whirled towards the King.

 Ollarin barely dodged, weaving left and right, desperately avoiding the rain of blows she was aiming at his head. She was screaming at him, roaring her fury at the deaths of her siblings. Ollarin, sweating and bleeding from the smoking arrow still lodged burning in his thigh, was more terrified that he had ever been. The First and Second had been strong, powerful, muscular men, but for Ollarin, they paled in comparison to this woman. She was wrath in female form, a speeding harpy with twin blades.

Soon Ollarin was bleeding from a dozen wounds, and as he bled the strength he had been gifted began to leave him. Within a minute he was on the ground, his sword five feet away, and she was on him. Ollarin cried out in agony as she kicked him savagely, sending him further and further away from his weapon. He knew he was lost.

He rolled away from another blow of her booted foot; towards the fallen bodies of the First and Second. She followed, raising her axes. He scrabbled in the dirt for something, anything, which would help him. All his fingers encountered were a blood-stained ash-wood arrow, dropped from the Second’s quiver and fiercely hot to touch. He tightened his fingers around its shaft, ignoring the immediate blisters forming on his palms.

Her axes reached their apex, and began to descend; he spun on the ground and thrust towards her heart.

Her leather failed her when it met with the intense heat of the arrow, but her axes continued their fall, and bit into his back. They sliced through the scales of his armour, and laid open his flesh - but the pain meant nothing. The Third was on her knees, blood bubbling from between her lips. Her eyes found Ollarin’s, and even as the dimmed, they burned into his with the full force of her agony and rage.

Ollarin’s soldiers ran to him now; they had obeyed his orders and watched in amazement as their King had fought like no man they had ever seen. As they reached him, they saw a smile play about his lips, and heard him whisper “Thank you, Eyre.” They lifted him onto their shoulders and carried his dying body from the field of battle. He was dead before they reached his tent, but the smile remained; his face was calm, serene. The battle was won, and Eyre had accepted Ollarin’s bargain.

The army turned for home, but greatly diminished - vast numbers stayed North of the lake to keep the remaining Northfolk in order. A garrison was already being built when the cart bearing Ollarin’s body began to roll South, carrying him to Avarial, his home, his wife, and his son. Their journey was shorter than before, but felt so much longer.

When they finally reached Avarial, the city wept for their King in silence. Ollarin’s queen Gillara retreated to the Shining Keep’s crypts with her fallen husband’s body. Their son Bendarian, a boy of twelve, summoned the remaining knights and Lords to him, and formed a council. They told him of his father’s prayers to Eyre, and of the bargain he had made. The boy King ordered a temple built to the God, resting on the top of Avarial’s cliffs, overlooking the ocean. Then, he looked to the defence of Condriel.

Reports from the North were mild, but still troubling; the Northmen were loath to give up their dark gods, and remained vicious and blood-thirsty. Bendarian knew they must be contained. He coaxed and cajoled until his council agreed to his suggestion - containing the Northmen behind an impressive, continually-manned garrison.  Stonemasons and carpenters were dispatched to beyond the Biarn Lake to build a mighty fortress, and the strongest warriors remaining to Condriel were given orders to man it. The Garrison stood like a stout wall right across the land -its builders considered themselves lucky that the land naturally bottle-necked in the pass, and the men-who-would-be-guards were pleased the cliffs provided them with a natural defence.

  The North would become Biarnan, annexed by Condriel and under its watchful gaze for all time. Never again would they be able to rise up.

Forty years went past; Bendarian was a wise, kind, prosperous king, and the people of Condriel flourished. A vast keep was built along the Western coast, and named Eyre’s Hold. It was magnificent; its walls were strong and tall, and it was so large it even had room for its own vegetable fields. Those lords who had survived the Northern war were named High knights, and all else who had returned alive and chose the honour became the Low. The Hold housed them all in comfort, three-thousand brave men, their squires and the keep servants. All Bendarian asked of them was that they ride to Condriel’s defence if ever they were threatened.

The Garrison stood strong in the North, surrounded by unassailable cliffs; and memories of the threat that had once been began to fade...

                      *

 

Many years later, in his small bed across from the sleeping bulk of the man he calls father, the little boy sweats through his small clothes as he slips further into his familiar night-terror. The nightly mind-haunting is always the same. The boy sees a man, tall and well-muscled, yet lithe and graceful. Sunlight glints off his armour as he rides into battle, and to all the world, he looks a fearsome, fearless warrior. The little boy knows different. In his dreams, he IS the man, and the man is afraid. He knows what will happen should he fail now. He knows how many will suffer; the men, women and children of Condriel will forever fall to darkness. He must not fail.

Time shifts in the dream, and the little boy tosses and turns in his small bed even as the man swings his sword. Foe after foe fall to his steel’s deadly kiss, but they do not matter. None of them are important, just pieces used by players not yet ready to enter the field. But he must bring them down one by one all the same. He cannot wait at the sidelines for his real enemy - the people of Condriel must see him fight.  The boy’s skin burns with exertion, and he calls out in pain, waking the sleeping man beside him.

His father looks at the sleeping body, and is still scared by what he sees, though the sight is now familiar. Adorning the boy’s body are shimmering blue lines that look like icy fire. The boy is sweating but he is radiating cold. The father knows better than to try to wake his son - the one and only time he tried, he was thrown clear across the small room and blisters formed on his fingers within moments. All he can do is watch, wait, and comfort the boy when the dream is done.

The boy feels the terror of the tall man. The foe has entered the field of battle, and all seems lost. His friends lay broken and bleeding around him, only discernible by their armour. The man is pinned to the floor by his now-dead horse, and his sword arm is crushed, shattered by the unexpected blow of a mace. The pain doesn’t matter. What matters is that the First of the Three is coming towards him, his great sword pale with unnatural hoarfrost. He cannot move, and knows his end is coming on mailed feet. The First is stood over him now, and the boy looks out through the man’s eyes at his approaching death. The blade rises, and as it falls, the man and boy share a single thought; ‘I have failed.’

The boy bolts upright and screams, shrieking his terror into the room from the bottom of his lungs. The blue lines shine bright enough to light the room, and sear across his skin like so much agonising filigree.

For as long as he can remember, this has been his torment, and despite the assurances of his father, who whispers soothingly whilst he holds him tight, the boy knows his pain will not end until he finds the tall man, and asks him why...

*

Reviews

[TheBlueJay]

Hello, so take what you will.
From the first paragraph, I knew that you had taken a great deal of time to perfect this and that it was only going to get better. I have a feeling that I won’t have a lot to criticize here…
“For more than fifty years, the dark forests rang with the sounds of steel and blood. An army was being built, and the North grew darker every day.” This is the first time I was able to look away from your writing. It is a good line, but there is a disconnect between it and the one before it. Just an FYI.
After reading the whole thing I have to say that was great. As a person, who has spent years reading, writing, and critiquing fantasy I have to say this is very well done. I saw one or two grammatical errors, but who doesn’t have one or two?
Where there is a change in focus from the battle and the kingdom to the boy’s nightmare I did want to skim it but held off. There is something about dreams in the first chapter that I just tend to start skimming, especially if they happen later in the chapter.
Again, well done. I can’t wait to come back to read the next chapter.

[Samuel Dickens]

I feel this is very well imagined, thought out out, and written. Having done a little fantasy writing myself, I can appreciate the excellent names you've invented. In my years on this site, I've never seen a better piece of fantasy writing than this. Due to its length and my diminished ability to concentrate, I must say that I mostly skimmed it and didn't read every word. I saw plenty enough to form the opinions that I've stated, however. As a book or much longer story, I believe it has a lot to offer.

[MadamHatter]

Thank you for this review, and again, my apologies for not responding to your kindness.
I am truly touched that you liked what I have tried to do here, especially as I am struggling so much to break my block and continue with the story.
I hope that, given time, I will be able to complete more of this work, and I hope that you will enjoy it.
Holly