The Day of Dark Skies

A prolgue I turned into a story.

 

The city members of the capital of Rabanell all gathered together in the Court of Kings. Two golden statues were carved on both sides of the entrance to guard it for eternity. The roof of the Court was made of the precious metal orichalkos, stronger and more beautiful than diamond. Men, women, and even children gathered to see the debate of the millennia. As the last of the people found seats in the massive room, everyone went completely and utterly silent. The debate had begun. A man with white robes stepped forward.

            “As all of you know,” he began, “we have gathered here today to discuss and decide the fate of this young child.” He pointed to the center of the room where a mother stood holding her child. The woman wore washed out rags, obviously a commoner, and had a worried look on her face. The child had light brown hair and gleaming green eyes.

“Lynn is the mother of this precious boy, if any of you were wondering” He gave a small chuckle and then turned toward the main part of audience.

            “I now shall give a brief summary of our nation, as we always do before an important event. Our nation is Ayslia and our rivals are the Molaki. At one unknown point in the deep past we used to be together.” Some of the crown grunted while others shifted in their seats.

             “We used to be a grand nation that lived in harmony on the Continent, our symbol was a blue dragon wrapped around a sapphire. The color of the symbol was blue for peace and prosperity. But that all was before the Great Divide…” The man’s voice lowered dramatically. “The Great Divide brought war to the Continent, and the once grand nation split into two. The aftermath of the Great Divide is almost unspeakable. In desperation, we looked to the places we loved most. We took the islands and the mountains as our territory while they took everything else as their domain. It was the most horrifying part of our history. The two split nations formed different ideas. We have a king,” Some of the crowd took a quick glance at the king, who was sitting on his throne by the stands. “while the Molaki have a despot. We treat our dragons with revere, while they treat them as war animals.”

            The king stood up. His fine green robes had the Ayslian symbol on it. A green dragon wrapped around an emerald. “Dear John, I think you have said enough of our history for now, do you not think so brother? Please get to the reason we are here today.”

            John nodded and continued, “Yes, yes of course. Please excuse me. Now, the reason we have gathered is because of the eyes this boy has. As you know, at the exact same time a baby is born, a dragon is born somewhere, anywhere in the world and is destined to come to him. The color of your eyes is the color of their skin. For example, red eyes means fire dragon, blue eyes means ice, and green means a combination of both. There hasn’t been a green eyed baby born in over five centuries! I suggest we...”

            “A demon!” shouted a man from the stands.

“It is a sign that we will be victorious at the next battle!” said another.

            “He is a special boy.” said a woman.

“Silence!” the king shouted to all, “This boy is simply very fortunate, I say that the dragon watch should keep an eye out for the new green dragon while looking for others. I shall order them to first check the stables and the training areas for her. If she doesn’t happen to be there, we will keep watch at the towers. That is all. I order this meeting over.” With those last words, he got up and started to walk toward the door.

            “But brother shouldn’t we put more thought into…”

Boom! A crack started to show itself on the doorway. Boom! Boom! This time twice, the door way was about to give out. By this time people were screaming and two elite guards ran to the stables to get their dragons while the others ran to the door to stall whatever was out there.

“Everyone, get behind the stands!” the king yelled as he got his sword from behind the throne.

Lynn was panicked. Should I keep the baby asleep or wake him up?I haven’t even named him yet!  So many questions! BOOM! The door collapsed in a shatter of stone. A horn blew and twenty armed men marched in. They were carrying the flag of the Molaki, a green dragon wrapped around a red ruby.

A man, a general by the look of his armor walked in and out of the troops and then announced, “In the name of King Caster III we take this capital for our own.”

“Never!” the king shouted, unsheathing his sword.

“The Great King knew this would happen,” said the general with a growing smile, he turned to a solider standing outside, “send in a dragon to change the mind of this pathetic thing they call a king.”

            “Yes sir!” the solider answered. He took out a small whistle and blew on in. The high pitched noise made the crowd cover their ears. Within a matter of seconds, a large red dragon flew down and landed by the entrance with a rider on his back.

            “Soldiers, out!” declared the general. As if like robots the solders marched out of the building, leaving the fire dragon at the main entrance.

            “Torch them,” the general said to the rider.

“Yes, sir!” he answered automatically. The rider flicked the reins twice and the dragons chest started to well up.

Lynn looked around the room for another exit. The back door was bolted shut when the troops walked in and the stands were still open to fire. She closed her eyes and started walking toward the dragon not sure what she herself was doing. Just as the dragon was about to erupt with burning fury, a blue dragon tackled the red dragon. The baby, now wide awake, saw the entire thing in the safety of his mother’s arms.

“Ayslian men!” a solder yelled before he was shot by an arrow from the sky.

More men rushed to the scene and began to fight with the Ayslian men. Iron clashed with iron as men were slain in front of the once peaceful court. Bodies started to pile as Ayslia slowly started to be pushed back. Some of the members picked up blood stained weapons to fight, only to be slain themselves by hundreds of men. Screams of soldiers echoed in her ears as she hid behide the stands with the rest of Ayslia's villagers and noblemen alike.

               “Ayslian archers on dragons! We’re doomed!” said a scared soldier. Arrows rained down upon the bloody battle hitting Molaki soldiers as well as Ayslian. As hundreds of men fought, the two dragons were still wrestling, blowing fire and ice, and going for each other’s throat. Gashes from the sharp claws bled the dark blood on the ground. Even after the cuts, the dragons refused to get up. Both had serious injuries and dead riders, but they had reverted to bare instinct. Blood splattered everywhere as thousands of men fought.  Ever so slowly, the Molaki were pushed away from the Court until they were forced to flee. The sky was darkened as the famous city that held the capital's people started to burn.

The Day of Dark Skies Lynn would call it, for that is what she remembered most from that day. Darkness and death.

Author's Note

It has its cinks in it, but it was only a first draft, so give me some slack.

Reviews

[Deseret]

it was a nice first draft, but it wouldn't be a nice second, you understand? it is an interesting idea, the eye things, but if you don't mind me saying it seems that red eyes would be less common then green eyes, but i am sure you had a reason for this, the other thing is that why would the entire nation get together for the hearing of this baby when the king was so self assured? and if every baby had a dragon what about all those people in the stands? maybe brown eyed babies don't have dragons :-) if you don't mind me suggesting maybe the reason the opposing nation chose that moment to attack was because they knew that everyone was in that one place. because of a mole or spy or something, oh! and why wouldn't they just trap the peoploe inside and torch the place?

something else that might help your writing are metaphors and synonyms instead of just stating the facts, this would probably help the most in the last little bit, with the battle

[Gary H]

Good collection of ideas now you need to take them apart and fit them back together in a structure that really sets the story alight. Do look at spacing that helps the reader between paragraphs and in speech between different people. I'm sure you are aware of the comments made by other reviewers. Just remember this is your story and should always remain that way.

[Manictastic]

You clearly have writing skills, but there are some weird things in this story. There is talk about a Green Dragon who combines both qualities of the other dragons, he is thus some sort of unifier. I would have expected that in the battle, the Green Dragon would have appeared and sorted things out. Another thing is how can the Ayslan soldiers just march right up to the Court of Kings. Maybe you should have opted for a messanger from the town's towers to warn the Court who on entry in the room would have dropped dead by an arrow. Just suggesting things here. Your short story could be a great science fiction story, just needs a little bit more work, (which is logical since it's only the first draft).

[Char]

woah this is amazing! i didnt know you where such an awesome writer!! this is definef one of your best pieces ive ever seend!