The door had opened at last.
Through it walked an enormous guard smacking a club against his palm, eyes settling on the prisoner dangling from the dungeon wall. The man grinned at him, an eyebrow rising as the man’s interest seemed peaked.
“Is ‘at fur me?” the dwarf grinned happily. The lunatic broke into laughter, his eyes darting from side to side, the paranoid ramblings making his movements erratic. The madness from which he suffered had made him crafty and dangerous; a rabid animal on a tenuous leash. He waited for the guard to enter the cell, so he might get a taste of him as well. His feet pounded the stone wall behind him, propelling his hips forward in a vain attempt to free himself. He licked the blood off his lips in anticipation of what was to come.
“The club is for after,” sneered the guard, as he slowly walked to the bars of the cell, hand upon one, his chosen weapon swinging slowly at his side.
He stopped and stared in confusion. Why did he have to wait?
The guard’s face broke into a wider smile, “after all, we can’t have anyone recognizing what’s left of you.”
The dwarf’s heart beat harder in his chest, face flushing, eyes nearly bulging out of his eye sockets as he struggled against his chains. “Ah daur ye tae try it, I’ll eat whit wee brains ye hae in ‘at thick skull ay yoors, an’ shite it fur a week!”
Footfalls could be heard from the stairway beyond as Clint came into view, his shoulder-length brown hair jostling with every step. His back was straight, his shoulders squared, and his head was tilted upward a bit, as if he himself were royalty about to pronounce sentence. “I hear that you have been stirring up the rats,” he sneered, glaring at those imprisoned in the adjacent cells. The man wore a maroon shirt and a belt bound about a pair of black pants, a matching cloak draped across his back and sliding against the last step with a soft caress. His brown eyes swept the criminals pressed against the bars in the adjacent cells, eyes taking in the scene around him as if all were beneath him and alive only because he wanted them to be.
The other inmates cowered and swiftly retreated into the shadowy corners of their cells, as if that were enough to spare them the man’s glare.
“I’m nae afraid ay ye! If ye kill me, she’ll fin’ an’ torture ye! Yoo’ll be far waur than me! Yoo’ll hae wished yoo’d died in mah place!” roared the madness within; spit flying anew as he struggled against the shackles holding him in place.
The guard swung the door open and Clint stepped through it with a silent grace, coming face to face with the dwarf hanging on the wall. “Is that right?” he glared at the filthy creature, nose twitching at the smell; an insane light burning in his eyes.
“She will fin’ ye, cuik ye, an’ feed ye tae th’ jackyls! They hae micht appetites an’ loove th’ taste ay asshole in th’ morn!” he exclaimed, breaking into fresh cackles.
Clint’s eyes twinkled, “what makes you think she gives a rat’s ass about you?” Quicker than the eye could track, a dagger had appeared in his hand and had flashed across the dwarf’s throat, slicing it cleanly. With a flick of his wrist, it disappeared from sight, as if having never existed in the first place. He remained before the dying prisoner, watching the life slowly ooze from the wound.
The crazy little man was unable to rant and rave any longer. Fear had finally snaked its way into the dwarf’s mind, taking hold for the first time since arriving on the grounds before the outer walls, his tormentors hard on his heels. Confused that his life was ending, that her promise to come for him would not be fulfilled, he sagged and went into oblivion; his stumpy legs convulsing in their final death throes.
A few minutes passed as the dungeon’s newfound silence stretched its legs, joyous at the reprieve finally afforded it. A leg was still twitching, and Clint took pleasure in watching the last spasms of life rock the body of the dead dwarf, the man’s irises expanding, then finally dulling as life departed. He breathed in slowly, enjoying the moment. Then he straightened, remembering that there were eyes on him. “After you’re done, burn it,” he told the guard with the club.
He basked in the power that the execution had filled him with and gave the corpse a final look of disgust, before turning towards the steps leading to the keep above. “And dispose of the witnesses, we don’t need any more of that dwarf’s madness fueling the paranoia of our citizens. They are riled up enough as it is.”
The prisoners in the other cells cried out in fear, their bodies trembling as they backed against the walls, eyes wide, mouths quivering.
“Gladly,” the guard answered and stepped towards the dwarf’s corpse; club raised high.
Chapter 2
Storm on the Horizon
I
Erik’s father died when he was thirteen. Even before the crown was placed on his head, he had devoted himself to improving and evolving the elven way of life. His people were a proud, steeped in tradition, arrogant race, and it had been an uphill battle his entire life; each step of progress ferociously fought and bloodied.
Before the apocalypse and the rise of the Phoenix, his people had remained in the shadows, removed from the races of the land, refusing to interfere with the world developing around them. A rootless tribal society, they hid from the ever-growing population of Man, withdrawing further in the woods as deforestation and industrialization destroyed their homes; and it was his opinion that such apathy that had existed amongst his people had almost led them to their annihilation. He understood what the Traditionalist did not; they could not return to the shadows and hide from the world once more or they would never survive as a species.
They were an ancient people, existing long before the race of Man dropped from the trees and wielded their first spears. Out of a sense of superiority, his ancestors had looked down upon them, underestimating their potential; seeing them as primeval savage beast that could never be reasoned or bargained with. The intelligent ones were few and far between, and his people believed that they’d die out before ever posing a threat to their way of life.
It was this dogmatic superior misunderstanding that led to their eventual forced withdrawal from the world.
Though other fairy creatures had toyed with the humans as they evolved, the elves were wary and kept their distance. There were five different societies of elves and each had a differing view of how to treat the invaders encroaching upon their lands.
The Sea Elves were dismissive towards the humans, they could hide easily beneath the waves and viewed anything happening to the others as “surface problems”. They would learn to regret that decision once Mankind developed the means to travel beneath the waves and pollute their world to the point of suffocation and starvation.
The Highland Elves wanted to integrate themselves into the human’s lives, to join with them in building the world, and got shunned by the others for their lunatic ideals, eventually having their representatives thrown out of the Council out of pure spite. The idea of coexistence was labeled blasphemous, any elf preaching such banished forever from their homeland.
The High Elves were the proudest, superior acting of the four races, and viewed Man as insignificant as the rats that ate their food stores. They advocated for their destruction, lest the rapid breeding vermin be allowed to spread further. Had they not treated the other races of Elf as lesser beings themselves, their ideas might have gained traction and the world would be an entirely different place right now.
The Wood Elves, his ancestors, were tribal roamers that were content to simply conceal themselves and avoid the humans at all cost. They used their magic frequently to avoid detection and were always ten steps ahead of the bulldozers invading their lands, packing up and moving like the Native American people of the New World changing homes with the seasons. Always to a place deeper and darker, shadowed from the world, peering through the trees with hatred at what had been lost.
While the Dark Elves withdrew from everyone, even their own kind, and secluded themselves in the depths of mountains; rarely seen or heard from by anyone like
the dwarves of old. They were the forgotten race, the wild religious cult that everyone ignored and pretended not to be related to at parties.
These differing points of view eventually split the elves apart and each withdrew to their solitary means of existence. Employing all their wisdom and magic at their disposal, they moved deeper into the forests, the mountains, and the seas; the consensus being that humans were warlike barbarians that would kill each other off, and the problems posed would cease to exist with their demise.
Pariahs would occasionally reveal themselves but were quickly disposed of when discovered. It didn’t happen often, but enough that humans came to know of their existence, if not fully believe in it. They depended on the deep wilderness to conceal themselves, used their magic to dissuade the random groups of humans from trespassing in their territories, and drove deeper in as the centuries passed and Man spread further across the globe.
His ancestors had to have some understanding that sooner or later, they would run out of places to hide.
He shook his head as he reflected on that period of their history and tried his best to see it from their point of view. He tried to imagine what his predecessors felt, what their lives would have been like, and through their perspective, find an understanding of the choices they had made to get here. The lack of surviving written records did little to help him in his endeavor, not many had endured the wars to come. Had the elven people emerged from the forest and revealed themselves, would the devastation that was to come have been averted?
Of course, he had the benefit of hindsight, his ancestors had no idea the evil approaching on the horizon.
There existed no record of their beginnings, but many remained of what could have been their end. The Phoenix had taught the elves a hard lesson, one written in blood and loss.
During what the humans called the 21st century, a woman had emerged from an ancient abandoned castle with a tome of magic thought forever lost to time. It had been written by demonic forces in a past so remote, that it was believed to be in the time of creation itself. With it in her grasp, she wove her dark magic, seduced the minds of politicians, and made the countries of Man grow distrustful of each other.
At that point in history, Man had spread to every corner of the globe, sapping the Earth of her resources, with no regard to how to replenish what they took or how it would forever impact their environment. There were elves hidden in dense forest worldwide, separated from one another for thousands of years. They had evolved independently and only regained contact when the technology advanced enough for them to do so. Some of his people rejoiced when those connections were made, but the cause for their celebration was also their downfall; it was the same technology that eventually lead Man to his doom.
At the height of her power, the Phoenix orchestrated massacres on a grand scale, and spread disinformation of those involved. She convinced the great leaders of Man that atrocities were being committed by innocent pawns in her game. Even though they protested their innocence, the forged evidence was too believable and damning to be ignored.
Finally, they had to turn to their militaries to defend themselves from their aggressors, an act that openly invited the very thing they wished to avoid. War became the instrument of communication and their advanced technology was wielded with a devastating force unseen in the history of the world. Illegal biological warfare ravaged every nation as the survivors huddled in their bunkers, horrified and fearful of what more was to come.
There were no records of who made the first move in the final act of that civilization, and it didn’t matter; it was the Phoenix who was ultimately responsible for nearly casting Mankind into oblivion. Orders were given, missiles launched, and all organic matter on the Earth was almost completely wiped out.
The apocalypse had arrived, and with it the Nuclear Winter that would finish what the bombs had started.
Having anticipated the ramifications of her actions, the Phoenix had protected what was formerly called England from the devastation that rocked the planet. Having gained followers to her cause and teaching them the arts of magic, her newly formed coven erected a protection spell powerful enough to shield the island from the technology sent to wipe it out. It had left the coven weak and many died from the exertion alone. Yet, she remained powerful beyond reckoning, reinforced by the demonic energy of the book in her possession.
As the remnants of government desperately tried to figure out what was going on, she wove another spell that ripped a hole in the fabric of reality, creating a rift between the dimensions. Out of it poured hordes of demons, orcs, goblins, and other unspeakable monsters of hell, that immediately bowed and obeyed her every command. She sent them against the already reeling British military, who fell before the masses of nightmarish creatures bearing down upon them.
They never had a chance.
Overthrowing the existing government, none in power were spared. She slaughtered millions in the weeks to come. And after it was over, the few survivors were thrown into slavery.
With Man defeated, she turned her attention to the forest and the races she knew were hiding within. Her armies swept in their direction, destroying every form of life in their wake. Long had the elves hidden behind their magic, and it provided them with a false sense of security, and they paid most dearly for their ignorance.
These monsters of legend penetrated their defenses and began the systematic slaughter of their race; their magic not enough to stand against the hordes arrayed against them. A newly crowned prince rallied the elves and with one final ditch effort to repel the army, marched the remnants of the elven military into the field of battle. The last of their magic was employed against their enemies, but it was not enough; no one survived the massacre to come.
Thinking the elves extinct, the Phoenix began reshaping the land to what she imagined it should be. It was a dark time in history, and little was written or salvaged from it. Few elves survived to witness what came after; their skills in deception and invisibility barely allowing them to limp on; constantly on the run. For over five centuries they clustered together, using everything at their disposal to remain undetected. In horror, they watched the world around them get ripped apart. Mountains rose and fell, lakes dried up while others sprang into being, and the existing life that remained was reforged forever. His ancestors knew that they couldn’t remain hidden, eventually they’d be discovered, and it would mean the end of their race. They began to plan for their eventual enslavement or destruction; for no other possible outcome seemed possible.
That moment never came.
No one knew how, but the dwarves had survived while all the other races slowly perished at the hands of the Phoenix. Though believed to be extinct, they had foreseen Man for what they would become, and had withdrawn from the world. Hidden in the deepest parts of the mountains, they had persevered and thrived beyond imagining.
When the last bands of Man came together and rebelled, the dwarves finally emerged from their mountain fortresses and threw the strength of their armies behind them. With renewed hope and having the foresight to see it for what it was, a last stand, the elves emerged from their forest and added everything they had left to the cause. An army of fae revealed themselves as well, their magic having shrouded their presence even from their long-lost kin.
For the first time in recorded history, the races were united, and together marched against the Phoenix’s hordes. Freedom was not even thought of, only the day to day survival of the brethren they fought beside. Battles waged, both sides suffering victories and losses, both giving and taking ground. No one knew what turned the tide in the end, but with both magic and steel, they drove the hordes north towards the sea. With her armies in disarray, the witch once more called on her magic. The heavens heaved their wrath upon them as large meteors plowed into the advancing armies and almost wiped them out just as victory seemed to be within their grasp.
Then, with no explanation, it was over. After a thousand-year reign, the Phoenix was gon
e and her evil finally brought to an end.
No one knew what happened to her, at least none he had ever met, and it was one story you’d think would have survived above all else. There were rumors that she had faced a powerful opponent and fell in battle, but there was no speculation offered as to who or what it was. In the end, the stories could not be verified or substantiated, her death forever a mystery. Only scorch marks on the floor of her throne room indicated that something violent had occurred, and they were eager enough to depart and not investigate further once they’d ascertained that the immediate danger had vanished. They abandoned the fortress at Blackwater to the elements and the evil that permeated every stone and fabric of the place, declaring it a forbidden land, promising exile to any that would violate that commandment.
No hero ever emerged to claim credit for the Phoenix’s defeat, but whoever it was, had saved them all.
Victory had never been imagined or planned for. The survivors were left standing on the field of battle, really looking at each other for the first time. Man had become aware of their existence; the shadows forever expelled from their lives. Unable to retreat into the depths of the forest and mountains from whence they came, the races decided that the time had come for them to rebuild civilization together.
However, coexistence was easier talked about than enforced. Arguments raged over the direction their new world would take, and eventually divisions forced them apart. The dwarves retreated to the forests of the southwest, forever shedding the caves for sunlight. The elves claimed the deep forest of the northeastern regions of the island as their home, determined to forge for themselves a new destiny. Fairies faded back into obscurity, rarely seen or heard from again. Man claimed the largest portions of land, mostly to the south; the northern ranges too devastated for resettlement. Fortresses were built, old rivalries harbored, and the free races grew reclusive and isolated from one another once more.
The New Age Saga Box Set Page 5
