by P D Ceanneir
The second stage was started by the De Proteous at the, now famous, Battle of the Pass. This was known as the Raider Campaign. It is by far the most documented series of battles in Rawn history.
The third had many names attributed to it, but has now become known as the Dragon Wars...and is still to be told.
In the aftermath of the Drakken’s attack on the palace, several things happened. A set of green marble tombs commissioned by the Paladin-knights and built beside the royal burial mounds of Cromme Monarchs on the Isle of Carras, became known as the Paladins Vault. Sir Verkin, captain of the prince’s elite bodyguards, was the first of the Paladins entombed there after an auspicious ceremony. His friends made a simple epitaph:
RIP
SIR VERKIN
DRAKKENSLAYER
The losses did not stop at Verkin. Brynd had received a bad wound to the chest; the Drakken’s weapon had flensed him to the ribs. Unfortunately, it was his brave act of saving Verkin and Velnour that spelt his doom and to end his short life. He had taken the full force of the Drakken Wyrmfire and suffered burns on his chest and face.
He writhed in agony for seven days until finally dying from the trauma. His friends believed it was a blessing that he did not suffer any longer and they placed him, with honours, beside Verkin. In time, the Paladins’ would all go on pilgrimage to the Fess. There they uncovered the stone cairn on Skytop and took back the remains of Ethyn to intern his body inside the Paladins Vault.
Even though the sea the night of the Drakken attack was stormy, the tide was coming in and the currents were strong. All manner of miscellaneous items washed up onto the shore. However, they never found the body of the Drakken. In time, parents told stories of the beast to scare children at night; it became just as fearsome as the stories of the Blacksword himself.
The Blacksword’s battle with the Drakken became legendary. It is marked in history as one of his greatest. However, the Paladins knew who really made the kill.
The days after the fight with the Drakken were days of worry for the prince. Guilt wracked his body and he meditated more to disperse the Pyromancer’s energy that manifested. Energy, he instinctively knew, he accidentally passed to Verkin. A curse, which somehow grew inside the captain after he healed his wound that day long ago in the Oldwoods. A curse that would eventually kill his friend.
Verkin’s death would be one of the many losses he would remember for the rest of his life.
Shanks drew.
He drew a lot, and it became a new obsession to focus his mind. The pictures on the walls replaced the Skrol that that been there for decades. Molna was astounded at his talent. He was very, very good.
‘I used to sketch and paint you know,’ said Shanks, ‘when I was younger, of course, but I can’t remember what. A great chieftain of the Hinterland Berserkers taught me. Though, I can’t remember his name.’
‘These are well drawn. It’s almost like they are jumping from the page,’ said Molna who had come to deliver the finest parchment she could buy so he could continue his work. Every square inch of his cell walls were covered in completed pictures.
Molna felt happy for Shanks. He was animated and receptive, his memory was still poor, but he was trying very hard to remember things from his past. She also felt happy in herself. The news of the Rogun recapture of Aln-Tiss a few months ago made her heart leap with joy.
‘But why just draw the Blacksword?’ she asked him. He had indeed, covered the walls with the image of the Blacksword. Shanks had taken on board all the information he could about the Blacksword’s description and battles. The image that festooned the walls of the cell was close to accurate as any eyewitness account.
The Sky Ship battle over the Tirithana Falls filled one wall; he even took time to detail the falling bodies as they plummeted from the broken hulls of the Sky Ships. The battle with the Drakken was his latest triumph; exceptionally well sketched, although the Drakken never had long horns and a barbed tail in real life. Nevertheless, being at the disadvantage of not seeing the battle at first hand, his rendition was still brilliant.
‘He is part of destiny,’ he answered her, his fingers black from the stick of charcoal he used the shade the darker areas.
‘Like the lovers of destiny?’ said Molna, the “Lovers of Destiny” was a new one on her, she sometimes heard Shanks muttering about them. When she asked him who they were he remained silent, like now. She looked at the other wall, the Prophecy of the Blacksword, written in neat handwriting, covered one wall. The words Rage and Vanquish were underlined.
Next to the prophecy was a sketch of the hooded Blacksword, the face could just be seen. The eyes were black and the face pale. It sent a shiver down her spine to look at it. The face was handsome though, and she recognised a younger version of Shanks.
‘That is you in your youth, isn’t it?’ she asked him as she pointed to the picture, ‘the young Telmar.’
He flinched at the mention of his name.
‘Don’t call me that!’ he snapped, ‘I want to forget the past. Not that I can remember much of it anyway.’
‘Sorry, it’s just that you seem to think that the Blacksword should look like a younger version of you,’ her quiet voice relaxed him as it always did.
He stopped what he was doing and placed the stick of charcoal on the table; he lent back in his chair, made a steeple with his fingers, and looked up at the queen.
“Those that mould and shape the world can only do so in their own image”, he said. Molna recognised a quote from a book called, The Conscious Lore by the long dead Elder, Sevaris the Mage.
Shanks had that look in his eyes. It was as if a remnant of his true self was surfacing from his muddled and forgetful mind. They twinkled and gleamed with charm and intelligence.
‘The Lovers of Destiny are many, my dear Molna,’ he said in answer to her previous question and the queen leant forward to listen intently. ‘They seek a future that will be their undoing.’
‘How so?’
‘Because they seek to unleash a power, so vast and terrifying, it will consume this planet and the entire universe.’
Molna frowned, ‘you speak of the Dark Force of the Earth, don’t you?’
He nodded, ‘Earth Daemon, Lonely God, Dark Entity… are also a few names it has been given by the Lovers of Destiny, who are its followers in the main. Although, that is only a name I have attached to them. They go by another, more ancient, name.’
‘Which is?’
‘The Brethac Ziggurat.’
Molna’s eyes widened, ‘You have got to be kidding me!’
‘I jest not!’ Shanks pouted at her reaction.
‘But the Brethac Ziggurat was destroyed thousands of years ago during the Elemental Wars; at least that’s what I was taught at school!’
‘So it seemed, so they made us all believe. The Eldi suppressed the actual history but wrote the truth in their individual diaries, which they called Grymward’s. I am one of the few people who have ever read these very rare books. I found them to be encoded in an old type of Skrol, laced with subtle mathematical algorithms. In my youth I was an expert at such complex math, and so the individual members of the Order of the Brethac Ziggurat leadership sought me out.’
He tapped the side of his head and smiled ruefully, ‘I hold many secrets, Molna. Not even Cinnibar can find them all.’ He chuckled. ‘I’m a danger to them all. The war I started all of those years ago was my attempt at stopping their mad plans.’
‘And what were those plans?’ asked the queen.
‘They want the Earth Daemon to be reborn as the Dark Tanis.’
Molna shook her head, ‘I don’t know what that is.’
‘It’s one of the secrets that the Eldi kept inside the Grymward’s. During the war of the Dragor-rix, several of the Eldi dragons told them about the Dark Tanis. In essence, it is the metaphysical spirit of the Earth Daemon reincarnated into flesh form. Once it becomes the Dark Tanis it will be indestructible and all life in the world and
universe will cease to exist.’
Molna gasped, ‘why would they allow that to happen?’
Shanks frowned as if the answer was obvious, ‘they are mad, my dear!’
‘Surely the Old Gods would not allow such a monstrosity!’
Shanks laughed, ‘Oh! I believe the My’thos know exactly what they are doing. Their war with the Dark Force of the Earth has been ongoing for millions of years, it continues even now, but they now have the upper hand. They have already prepared to bring forth their champion in advance.’
‘What do you mean?’
Shanks stared off towards the far wall and remained silent. Molna was patient, but feared he was falling into one of his fugue states again, but then he spoke, slowly and deliberately.
‘Do you believe in destiny Molna?’ he asked her. His voice sounded fearful.
‘Yes I do.’
“An unwatched destiny, throws us into the arms of fate”, Herodotus said that in one of his poems. I forget which; I think it is very apt.’
Molna nodded, urging him to continue.
‘I’m fate, my lady; the destiny that comes to me will be in the shape of the Blacksword.’
She was surprised, ‘the Blacksword will come here?’
Shanks nodded in answer.
‘Why?’ she asked in confusion.
‘Because, in a way, the Blacksword is my son,’ he said, ‘and only I have the answers that he needs. The answer to why the My’thos made him.’
The story continues in...
The Rawn Chronicles
Book Three
The Ancarryn and the Quest
