New Story, title to be determined

[Draconicon]

A new story that I am trying to make. And I hope that I can get some comments on this, so here goes nothing. Here comes most of the introduction that I have typed up so far.

In times now lost to most history scholars, there was an age of utopia. There was peace, plenty, and the other trappings of the rare Golden Ages that so many today long for. Darkness was yet to descend on the human heart, and as such, there were no weapons, no violence. For most of the people, this was a perfect time.

To others, it was a time of great stagnation.

There were those that saw this peace as a great pause in thinking, in progress. They thought that the peace and the prosperity that the people had were sufficient for living, but they were utterly convinced that all the living conditions could be better, if only the populace listened to their suggestions. And then kept on listening.

Those few that disagreed would have gone unnoticed, if they had been part of the common people, or even among the wealthy merchants that roamed through the Peninsula during that age. However, they were not among the low, or the middle class, more the pity. They were, instead, among the ruling council of the Peninsula, that august body that governed over all the people in the lands. As such, they had the power to put what plans they had into play peacefully.

And they tried such. Each time that they could, they pushed for more power in the council, and thus over the people. Each time, they were shouted down by the rest of the council. Even the most powerful of them, Journ Salbersk, who had been second in power to the Council Head, could not push any of their agendas through the legislature of the council. Eventually, this progressive faction found that the peaceful process of working through legal means had no result, and turned to a more drastic measure.

Journ took his faction within the council and seceded, pulling his people and his lands with him as he did. He retreated to the lands his people held, in the northern lands of the Peninsula, where most people considered the land uninhabitable, and set up his own nation, a progressive nation for those that shared his ideals, and those that wished to come there. Of course, the latter were near to non existent, due to the disapproval of the remaining council members.

The other one hundred fifty council members had looked at Journ's secession with great disapproval, thinking that his actions would only serve to get all of his people killed. They only hoped that he would come to his senses and bring himself, his faction, and all the people that had fled with him to the northern lands back to the fold. Many of them even thought that he would do that within weeks.

This hope was in a vain, though, as Journ had planned for this all along, and he had quite a genuis for progress and the survival of his people. He had a mind of metal, inventions, and progress, and it took little time for him to establish a new civilization for his people, with new, more efficient farming tools and methods, castles with walls that kept out the cold, and homes that held people far more comfortably. Lord Salbersk even managed to start up an actual currency of coins, rather than the system of barter that the rest of the Peninsula lived with.

However, like many societies that are founded by someone seizing their own power, the peace they created couldn't last, though it wasn't the fault of Journ himself that his peace began to deteriorate. Despite his genuis in the matters of machines,and inventing, the Lord Salbersk was a fool in matters of words and in how his lieutenants could lie to him.

Among the top lieutenants of the progressive former councilor were three people that had seceded from the rest of the people not for progress and prosperity, but for power. Their names were Salin Daras, Kar Basti, and Falsh Marone, each of whom were greedier and more ambitious than their lord Journ, and far, far better at hiding what they were thinking. Initially, they were satisfied with their lands under Journ Salbersk's rule, but as their lands became more stable, their eyes began to roam out over the Southlands, their minds dreaming of conquest.

Within two years of the establishment of Journ's dream nation, and after the building of several castles and fortresses within his realm, Salin approached his lord. He made exaggerated reports of the stagnant life of the people in the southern lands, where they couldn't produce even half of what they could make here in their own nation. Salin abased himself before the great genuis that had envisioned the paradise that they had, and begged him to bring that paradise to those to the south of them.

Journ was most reluctant to enter into any kind of interaction with the southlands. They had been glad to see him go, he was sure, and he knew that any overtures to share his advances would only be met with anger and a swift rebuttal of how it was unneeded. With honest curiousity, he asked his advisor, his lieutenant, how he would go about giving the men of the south such things as they had.

Salin had one answer for his master, one answer that had never been uttered before in the world.

War.

[Taimoor]

A nice piece of literature, as usual, and one that leaves me wondering towards which direction it will (may) unfold. Possibilities surely aren't lacking as I even imagine some of them even now.

Will happily wait for another part to this one.

[Draconicon]

SEcond part of the intro.

War.

It was an idea that was reprehensible to Journ, as reprehensible as it was foreign. There had never been a war in the Peninsula before, and though they had heard about it from other beings that traveled from across the seas, they had no experience in such matters. Surely, they would be crushed before they could make any kind of successful incursion.

Seeing that the seeds of the thought were planted, Salin withdrew, promising his lord that he would think on the matter, and consult with the other advisors. With such great minds as their own, he assured his master that they would surely come up with an answer. Dismissed by the great thinker, Salin went to his quarters, not planning at first to share the possible glory of this with the other two equal to his level.

However, he soon had no choice, as they both had heard from their spies what had transpired in the throne room of their lord, and came to speak with Salin directly. Both Kar Basti and Falsh Marone were quite ready to aid their comrade in convincing their lord to declare war, but they refused to aid him unless they received suitable compensation. Just as Journ ruled the northern edge of the Peninsula, each of the other three wished to rule another edge of the compass.

The next day, Kar and Falsh both joined in with their comrade in convincing Journ what he had to do. It was a difficult argument, as their ruler was a peace loving man, akin to many on the Peninsula, and violence was anathema to him. However, eventually, he was convinced in what he had to do. If might was what it took to bring the light of progress to those that he used to live among, then violence would be what he used to bring it to them.

Within but a few years, the industries and forges of the northlands were converted into weapon foundries, and the castles, formally meant only as decorations, were reinforced to stand against nearly any attack. They were equipped with ballistae, the first of their kind, and other weapons to repel those that would dare to lay siege to the people that lived under the protection and rule of Journ Salbersk. The production of weapons over the northern lands was undertaken in great enthusiasm, the people believing whatever they were told about their master, and the people in the south that needed these inventions that they so loved now. Before there could be any preparations in the south, war was brought forth, and the true power of the weapons forged was shown at last.

The men of the North had the advantage of weapons and in motivation, as they poured out of their snowy wastes as men possessed, fighting for their lord and his ideas. They saw their cause as noble, as the highest of callings, and fought desperately to prove themselves. What few times they were driven back by the greater numbers of the south, they had fortified positions to pull back to, so their numbers and safety were never truly threatened. With each strike that they made down from their own lands, they seized, at the minimum, another village for Journ, another group of people to teach in his ways.

The only advantage that the men of the south held was that of numbers, and such an advantage meant nothing against the tide of iron and steel that flowed towards them, intent on subjugation and destruction. They had never seen such raw energy and power, never before been shown the sight of such dedication, and they soon saw the results of the efforts of Journʼs armies. Within less than two months, Journʼs lands had grown. Where once he had held merely two hundred square miles of land in the northern wastes of the Peninsula, he now held the entire northern half of it, with his men poised to take more.

At this point, a single, evening factor came into play. Despite the power of the weapons that Journ had designed and had made, his troops had no experience wielding them. In fact, in and of themselves, the soldiers in his service caused relatively few casualties. Most people fled when they saw the men in iron coming down towards the villages and cities, and the ensuing panic killed at least three times as many people as any of the attacks that the soldiers made. As the people slowly learned to control their fear of the strange arms and armor that the enemies had, the casualties slowly started to decrease, on both sides. Sadly, both sides also gained experience in killing with weapons.

By this time, around the two month mark of the conflicts, Journʼs advance inexplicably stalled, staying right on the borderline of the middle of the Peninsula. In a very small part, this was due to the new found talent of archery that the people of the south had learned, and were employing to decent effect, cutting down officer after officer with their arrows and slaughtering several battalions of men. Their efforts at killing the enemy had resulted in nearly a thousand enemy dead, though they had depleted half of a forest to come up with the arrows to do so.

However, Lord Salbersk had many troops left at his home castle, troops that werenʼt needed there at all and could be used to good effect at the front. Those losses would have been easily replaced, and had been there in case there had been need of a replenishing force. However, Journ had watched the war with eyes that had been opened to the cruelties that he was inflicting, and he knew how easily he had been deceived. He couldnʼt call the troops back, not with his advisors and commanders working only for their own power, but he could keep the new troops out of the fray.

Of course, such an action didnʼt sit well with his advisors, particularly Kar Basti. He was the de facto commander in the field, and without fresh troops, he was not able to push forward any longer, settling into a defensive posture on the borders of current day Sarshan. Leaving those troops there to keep an advance from the southern forces from happening, Kar made his way back to the capital city of Journʼs lands, Hectal.

Meeting him there were Salin Daras and Falsh Marone, both recently back from the frontlines of conflict. They were both quite, quite upset with their ʽlordʼ and were there to force him to release the control of the twenty thousand men he had in reserve to them. In effect, they were there for a coup deʼ tat. With the troops that they had brought with them, they were sure that they could take back the city and convince Journ to do their bidding once again. After all, they had managed to convince him to go to war, hadnʼt they?

Of course, they hadnʼt considered what the great former councilor would do with the twenty thousand men at his disposal. During the time that they had been at war, Lord Salbersk had built up not just a fortress, but a stronghold, a true masterpiece of protective architecture. His walls to the city were over thirty feet thick, and suitable to be a road on the top of them. And the width was only a quarter of the height, the walls tall enough to merely allow the defenders to drop pebbles down with enough speed to manage a kill.

The men on the walls did not need such meager weapons, however, for they were equipped with the longbow and the crossbow, with bolt and shaft aplenty, each archer with a quiver of at least twenty of them, with more barrels of them strewn over the walls in easy reach. Every thirty five feet was marked with either a ballista or a catapult, and each was staffed with a team of men quite equal to the task of keeping them in perfect working order.

This amounted to a capital that Journ couldnʼt escape, but his advisors couldnʼt enter, not without endangering their entire war effort.

Meanwhile, in the south, the remaining council members were celebrating the halting of the war and Journʼs advances. They all believed that he had stopped the war due to their own retaliation, and only a few powerful beings on the council and their warnings kept the rest of them from calling what forces they had in the field home. One of those that were urging caution in the war, urging them to keep the troops out, was the head of the council, Sarsha Kasil.

[dandeon]

This was great, you do have a talent for keeping people interested, i hope you can finish this book, and if so, i'd love to test read it for you. although justnt an intro, the thought put into it was great, and i loved it.

[Draconicon]

Update number three

He knew, even if everyone else around him did not, that the threat posed by Journ’s armies, was far from abated. If the soldiers were pulled back from the lines now, they would have no warning when Journ pushed his armies forward again. As it was, they would barely have the warning to evacuate their cities and die in ways of their own choosing, for nothing that they had now would be sufficient to stand against the armies of steel and iron that were staring down at them from the north.

They needed reinforcements, reinforcements of a sort that could not be provided by normal beings. They needed the power and the force that only beings from out of the old stories could bring to bear and only one man knew how to harness that force. Councilor Sarsha was that man, and yet, through most of the war, he had remained adamant about not using that force. However, with the war at a standstill, and nothing further happening, he had no choice.

Refusing to take any bodyguards with him, the Head Councilor undertook a trip deep through the mountains of the lands, the mountains that separated the desert of his homeland from the western side of the continent. This was where the ancient powers of the lands resided, a secret location that was told to all Head Councilors at their investiture. The power to summon the powers that resided in the high mountains was also given to them in the form of their ring, a gold band topped with a single stone with four segments.

The stone was filled with power from the beginning of the world, when the primal elements were still strong and when the people were still at harmony with the land. It had a fragment of blue sapphire, red ruby, black onyx, and clear diamond that were melded together by some ancient force, held together in the ring. Within this ring, there was a power of command that had made the ancient Heads of the Council nearly impossible to resist, and had allowed them to hold the peace of the Peninsula.

However, in recent days, the power of the ring seemed to be failing. It hadn’t been enough to stop Journ from his secession, and it was barely enough to keep the more questioning councilors in line with him. Sarsha had heard the questions that were arising under his rulership, about how he was more paranoid than was necessary. In earlier times, the ring would have prevented such questioning, and left the others to do his bidding, unchallenged.

With such problems with a power that he had thought inviolate, Sarsha was worried if he could command the powers that were up in the mountains to do his bidding or not.

Throughout his journey through the peaks of the Shato Range, Sarsha ruminated on the situation back at home. From all that he had known of Journ, there was no way that he would have declared and pursued this war. There was no way that the person that he had known would have turned this violent towards his former peers and people. He had been a revolutionary, yes, but hardly someone that would embrace war.

The mountain snow and the storms that frequented the peaks of the ancient powers were difficult to pass through, even with the power of the ring to command a path, but with the will of the Head of the Council behind it, no barrier of the ancient beings could stand before him. His was the will that would command the way to the top of the mountains, no matter the doubts that he had of the ring. It would work, with his will driving it.

In the great journey to the top of the mountain, Sarsha had a great deal of time to think about what he was doing, and what had been happening in the world. He still was sure that Journ was not the kind of person that would have waged such a war, but for the life of him, he couldn’t think of what might have happened to make him do this. It had to have been something of vital importance to him, or at least, Journ had to have thought that it was.

But those thoughts stopped when he reached the top of the mountain, and began working the rituals to bind the beings there to his will. He knew that it was going to take a great deal of time, and he only hoped that he had enough of it.

On the summit of the highest mountain, Sarsha waited. He camped there, meditating on the power and the ritual that was required to summon the powers of old to his side, for nearly a week before he heard his answer. That answer came in the shape of a dark shadow that flew over the mountain before landing on a rock that overlooked the flat campground of the summit that Journ used.

A great, dark reptilian shape looked down on the Head of the Council, and he seemed almost curious about what this human was doing here. Sarsha considered it only a beast, and then raised his hand, clenched into a fist with the ring facing the creature. Speaking in his voice of reason that had swayed those of the council to his side more often than not, he said, “Beast of the ancient times, I call on you by the power of the Council’s Ring to aid me now. Bring yourself and your kin to the lower lands, and fight off the invaders of the north!”

Sarsha expected the beast to immediately take flight and head away from him. What happened was rather different, as the scaled monstrosity slowly descended from its perch and walked on all fours towards him, the black scales a stark contrast to the white snows of the mountain. Its scales were glinting yet in the light, the curved ovals catching the light before throwing them back into the face of whatever watched them. As the great, winged lizard approached the old Councilor, its horned head lifted up, the extended neck lifting it above Sarsha’s gaze, it spoke.

“You may wear the ring of your forebears, Councilor, but you do not share their will. I choose to aid you this time, for our purposes are the same. My kind cannot interfere with the affairs of those that live beyond the mountains, save by request, which you have now given. You shall have your aid in the war, Councilor, but never think that you command me, or the other dragons,” the black scaled reptile stated in a low, gravelly voice.

The many questions that Sarsha would have asked went unvoiced, for the dragon left the plateau of the summit and Sarsha behind him in seconds, flapping from the peak to the lower parts of the mountains and to the caves held therein. Sarsha had passed by them on his trek to the summit, and he had paid them little mind save to consider them as possible shelter. It was a fortunate thing for the Head of the Council, however, that he did not enter them, for even with the ring, it was not a good chance that he would have left it alive.

The caves of the mountain were the homes of the dragons, the people of the great beast that the Councilor had spoken to. Unbeknownst to Sarsha, the dragon he had summoned with the rituals that had been passed down along with the ring was the Lord of the Dragons, a being of power comparable to that of a demigod. He was a physical manifestation of two of the four elements, of earth and wind, and commanded them as a nobleman commanded their troops, and with far greater authority. And now, he was tasked with convincing his own people to leave the mountains on the request of a human.

Many of the younger dragons resisted his request, not wishing to involve themselves in the wars of those below them. The older dragons, and particularly those of an age with their Lord, knew the folly of such youthful instincts. The fact that the humans of the Peninsula, who had been so peaceful up to this point, wished war on each other was a worrisome turn of events. The people here had always been as far from warlike as was possible for humans to be, even after hearing of the rumors of war from afar when the traders from over the seas came around. Yet, now, the hearts of the humans had been infected with the darkness that infested the rest of the world, with no warning to the dragons at all.

Merely the thought of war wasn't the worst thing, however. The dragons had managed to quell wars before. What worried them was something far worse. The humans of all the other places that were their responsibility to watch had evolved through their weapons at nearly a snail's pace, finding first a few stone edges on sticks, and progressing from there over the centuries. The Lord Journ Salbersk, on the other hand, had found the first weapon and progressed through the process of weapon evolution to a place where not even the first to fight had reached in perfect methods of killing, with no help other than his own mind.

Some of the dragons wondered if they were losing the strength of their race, and failing in their mandate from creation, to protect and ensure the good in mankind. However, there was another thought in the room of a different sort, one that only the Lord of the Dragons managed to imagine.

He wondered if Darloen was getting stronger.

[Draconicon]

Update number four.

He wondered if Darloen was getting stronger.

As Lord of the Dragons, he was connected directly into the powers of Earth and Wind, and he would have known if there had been any lessening of the powers that sustained the dragons. There had been none, so the thought of Darloen had entered his mind, and would not leave. It was the answer that made the most sense, that the shadowy spirit that had escaped the ordering of creation would interfere in the last peaceful state left on the face of the earth. But to do so without alerting the guardians, the dragons, was an act that left him cold. Darloen would have needed a great deal more power than he had been left with for such an undertaking, and there were few ways for him to have attained it.

Despite the unsettling notion of a far stronger spirit of creation to deal with, the Lord of the Dragons kept the thought of such from his arguments to sway his race to the war. He had no need to use such reasoning, as it was enough to point out the powerful weapons that the former Councilor of the north had made, and show how with just a few adjustments, they could quickly be adjusted to be effective against dragons. Such an act, as unimaginable as it once was, shook the confidence of the younger dragons that they could afford to let the humans fight each other, and convinced the younglings to join with the force being assembled.

Within but a few hours, the Lord of the Dragons returned to the Head of the Council at the top of the mountain, followed by three hundred of his kind, half the population of the mountain. Male and female alike flew with him, the sunlight dimmed by the great size of their mighty bodies, the scales a rainbow of glittering sparlkles, from red to blue to emerald green, from white to gold to sparkling bronze. Yet their Lord was impossible to miss, a black shape in the sky that drew the light to himself and then reflected it back to the air again, as if in tribute for its attention.

Such was the sight that the ruler of the southern lands, and the head of its ruling council, was treated to. Awed by the sight of the strength that was surely his to command, Councilor Sarsha Kasil reached out a hand to stroke the nose of one of the female dragons, as one might do to a favored horse, or pet. Only a swift nudge of the tail from the Dragon Lord saved Sarsha from being scorched badly by a snort from the white dragoness. Robbed of the chance to chastise the human, she satisfied herself by giving the Head Councilor with a glare of great indignity.

The Lord of the Dragons explained the reasons for that after the glare abated, and he would not be the recipient of the anger of the white dragoness. "Despite our appearance, Councilor, we are not mere beasts. We think, reason, and live the same as you. We are no different in mind and soul, but merely in physical form. Do not presume to place us on the level of the beasts you use to travel, or of your beasts of burden," the great black dragon said in a gravelly voice that resonated through the ground.

The explanation puzzled the Head of the Council, who had thought that, with the combination of his ring's power, and the influence inherent with his office, that he could command all he saw. That belief had been shaken with the departure of Journ and his faction, and the explanations from the Lord of the Dragons did not reassure him in the least. However, the aid he had been seeking had been found and promised, and Sarsha would not question it, not when such questions could push his sorely needed allies away.

In repressed pride, the Councilor rode the currents of the mountain air back down to the desert of his homeland, and rejoined the Council and their army. The sight of the dragon normally would have startled the beings of the small fighting force into a flight to the capital of the south, but as their leader, their Head Councilor, stood on the back of the lead dragon and signalled for them to remain in place, they showed their loyalty by doing so.

When the force of the dragons finally landed again, Sarsha descended from the back of his allies and quickly brought the army and members of the Council to a secret meeting. Within the Council Chambers, and in the flights of seats left for an audience, Sarsha put forth his plan to push back the soldiers of the north. He would use the elemental might of the dragons to break a hole in their lines, and then force the battle further and further north, until they reached the city of Hectal. With the combined power of the great dragons, the protectors of the world, and the army of their own people, Sarsha was confident that victory for them was inevitable.

The Head of the Council was blocked in his motions, however, by some of the more foolish Councilors. The same ones that had pushed to remove their troops from the battlefront, the same ones that believed that the war was over, now argued that attacking with the dragons was an act of folly. If the southlands fought now, and did not achieve immediate victory, they would only provoke the Lord Salbersk to attack them once again, and this time with a far stronger army that they would not be able to resist.

Council Kasil could only shake his head at the sight of the resistant members of the council. They were fools if they could not see the need to do this now, fearful fools, true, but fools all the same. The people of the south could not afford to wait to commit themselves to a new, decisive strike, not when they had the perfect chance as it was. With the pause in the attacks from the north, there would be no better time to break through the lines, and take the fight to Journ himself. If they could use the dragons to break through the lines of steel and iron, they would be able to end this war in one move.

While Sarsha faced the same problem in the Council that the Lord of the Dragons had faced in the mountains, convincing his people to make war when so many of them believed that it was not needed, he was unable to bring forth the power of command that was needed in such simple terms as the dragons used. Even with the power of his own ring, and all the influence he had built over his term as Head of the Council, it took all that he had to keep his own supporters from abandoning him. With half the Council on his side, and half of it on the side of the young, fearful idiots that saw the war as over, it seemed as if they were doomed to apathy, and eventual death.

[Draconicon]

(Bump, someone please read and comment for heaven's sake.)

[Draconicon]

However, even idiots and fools will bow to the power of pride and shame, if it was applied correctly.

The Lord of the Dragons knew this rule of nature to be true, and was one to use it when it was called for, as it was now. Using his strength to rip off the roof of the Council chamber, the Dragon Lord peered in, his eyes betraying nothing of his thoughts. No Councilor was spared from his gaze as it roamed through the circular interior of the dome, the mirrors dotting the wall merely reflecting the glare of the Lord of the Dragons upon those Councilors that looked away from him. His gaze continued to wander over the men of the Council until he spoke, his voice rumbling through the very earth, the very walls of the chamber.

"I have long heard rumors of the men of the south from the watchers that we of the mountains keep in our service. For long years, I have heard that they were squeamish, fearful of the blood and scraps of bodies that are the result of war. I have heard that they shirk from even an upraised fist, backing down from any perceived threat. I have heard that they merely need to see a weapon to raise their hands in surrender, to fall to the ground and beg for mercy as a broken dog cowers before his master," the dragon said in scathing tones, his eyes latching one by one on the hundred-strong Councilors.

"I hoped that they were wrong. It appears, instead, that I am the one that is wrong. The men of the south are all that their acquaintances have named them. Cowards. Inferiors. Slaves. Slaves to the fear that runs rampant throughout their blood, to the lack of any resemblance of the desire to live free," the dragon continued, growls subtly entering his voice as he made his speech. "Even their rulers, the so-named ‘Great Council’, are nothing more than a squabbling, squalling group of infants, unfit to even consider rulership, let alone be given it. By what right do you dare to summon the aid of me and mine to a cause not even willing to defend itself?"

The reaction to his oration was quick and predictable. Councilman and Councilwoman slowly stepped forward from their seats, coming to the center of the Council chamber. They stood beside and around their Head, around Sarsha Kasil, and returned a glare to the Dragon Lord. They all planned to stand tall and ready for the war, now. They would not be cowards to be treated such. They would not live in such a way that their descendants would learn their history and be ashamed.

One member, a woman by the name of Liva Ashane, broke from the group and stood before them, her shoulders thrown back in pride and anger, her head tilted back and black hair snapping across her pale face as she spoke. "Lord of the Dragons, let your tongue run free! Your words are nothing more than the mutterings of ill-intentioned elders, who find fault with everything. Let no being say that the people of the south are less than completely dedicated to their safety, to the safety of the rest of mankind. Let no man say that we will fall at the first blow, but that we shall strike the final one! Let all the world know that we, the people of the south, are now at WAR!" she shouted, her fists clenched at her sides until the conclusion of her speech, at which time she flung them open to the cheers of all those around her.

During the celebration, Sarsha shifted his gaze to his fellow ruler, and shook his head softly at the deliberate antagonization. There had been little doubt left in his mind that the Lord of the Dragons held a mind in his head with great intellect, and what had just passed shattered that remaining doubt. What stared down at him was not a beast, but a being with an intelligence that had been sharpened for centuries, until it was sharper than the most well smithed blade carried by Journ's armies. It was a mind that he hoped would be used for the welfare of his own people.

That welfare would be earned in the war that came three days later.

The lands under Journ’s control hadn’t yet been at real war with the people of the south. One cannot simply declare war on those that had been your brothers for so long, and expect people to conform to it instantly. The ones so commanded will not be able to simplly discard a bond that has existed for so long, no matter the commands from their leaders and their own wishes. This was the exact situation that now loomed over the Peninsula.

Now, however, with the dragons on the side of the Southlands, the small skirmishes that had encompassed most of the war no longer existed. With the dragons fighting in the forefront of each conflict, there were no battles, no actual fighting on the parts of the men under the rule of the Council. All that could be found were massacres as the men of the north found themselves facing an enemy that couldn't be intimidated by their weapons, and refused to run before their metallic countenance. Even among the best of the new troops that invaded the southern lands, nothing remained before the wrath and skill of the dragons but bloodied metal.

The power of the dragons met no equal on the battlefield, and no power capable of matching them stood before them. Their claws, teeth, and strength of magic made swift work of any foolish men that stood their ground on the battlefield, and the remaining soldiers, of which there were many, ran swiftly for the north, seeking refuge from the sudden wave of death bearing down on them, knowing not the great quagmire they ran towards. The only consolation that the soldiers of the north would take in later years was the fact that those from the south knew even less of what they were approaching.

For Salin Daras, Kar Basti, and Falsh Marone, things had taken a great turn for the worse. Taken by surprise at the sight of the great walls erected around Hectal, and the siege engines atop them, the Triumvirate of ambitious advisors who'd worked together to engineer the entire war soon found they couldn't depart to the frontlines again. The moment that their army turned its back to their capital, stones nearly the size of small cottages rained down, smothering man and horse in moments.

Thus were the three architects of war held in place. The fortress that Journ managed to construct was a trap for them the same as a dart launcher was a trap for grave robbers.

Yet, eventually, desperation drove them to the one thing the Triumvirate dismissed as impossible for weeks. On the dawn of the same day that the dragons had launched the counterattack upon the front lines of the northern forces, Kar Basti and Salin Daras mounted an attack on the walls of Hectal, their own siege engines launching flaming stones against the walls in an attempt to break them down before their greater numbers.

Journ's walls stood firm against the assault, and drove the next ideas of the generals forward, improvised siege towers to shove their greater numbers onto the walls and take control of them and of the siege engines. With such things in their control, both men were confident that victory would soon follow. Falsh, however, did not share their certainty. The assassin had served closer to Journ than the generals, and knew his mind. She knew the cleverness lurking within that organ, and she knew that nothing would be simple in this attack.

Falsh proved to be correct, as the men on the walls provided yet another surprise to the attacking troops. Each siege tower that came to the walls received a treatment of oil and fire, burning them and the men within to ash. After losing over thirty thousand men to such a futile assault, Salin and Kar pulled their forces back, plotting through plans to bring the walls down, each less likely than the last to succeed.

Eventually, they came up with a plan that even Journ hadn't been able to predict, war being as new as it was, and it proved to be the great councilor's downfall. The one thing that Hectal was not fortified against was the idea of tunnelers, and through a week of the process of elimination, such a weakness wasn't difficult to find. On the morning of the eighth day of attacks, and having already lost 50,000 men, the Triumvirate made a new attack, sending over a thousand men underneath the walls of the architectural wonder that was Hectal.

Not one of the tunnelers met resistance, or fell under attack from the defenders of Hectal. For all their mastery at defending their walls from those that attacked directly, they remained untrained against the unknown thought of tunnelers. That weakness in their strategies spelled their downfall as the thousand men managed to get under the walls and then loosened the foundations. By nightfall, the siege engines began launching their payloads again, and against the loosened foundations of the great wall, soon prevailed against the formerly invincible barriers.

The southern wall fell to the ground amidst the cheers of the invading army, the other five walls wavering but still standing. Such might no longer mattered as the sixty five thousand strong strong army marched into the city, running over the rubble of the walls and raging through the streets of their capital. They remained intent on their objective, to reach the palace for their superiors. That level of intent would be admirable, but in a city left under the direct control of the greatest mind of the age, it presented a distraction that proved lethal.

[Draconicon]

In the sacking of the city, the men neglected to remember the time Journ and his loyal troops enjoyed exclusive access to the streets, alleys and buildings. From the first day that the walls had gone up, the soldiers that were able to be spared from the defense of the city remained hard at work designing and setting new defenses within the city itself. Under the technological genuis of Journ Salbersk, they set up the first deadly traps designed to be set up within a city. Traps of dart launchers, poison gas, and other ways of dealing death saw their first use in the world when the men under the Triumvirate of advisors attacked Hectal.

Greed for the plunder within even the poorest of buildings drew many soldiers off of the beaten path, into the buildings trapped against any intruders. Despite the warnings that Kar Basti passed around the troops, more than three quarters of the sixty five thousand men rushed into unsecured buildings, and found themselves the victims of defenses just as deadly as any weapon wielded against them. The Triumvirate lost fully as many men to the traps in the city as they had to the defenses that Journ had mounted on the walls.

By the time that Kar Basti, Salin Daras, and Falsh Marone reached the palace of their former sovereign, they were down to less than a hundred men. Barely enough to secure the entrances to the satisfaction of their superiors, the number certainly wouldn't be large enough to hold off any serious fighting should it arise, and the Triumvirate was well aware of that. However, they did not expect any fighting for another few days, at the minimum.

The forces of the Southlands, led by Sarsha Kasil and the Lord of the Dragons, arrived at the broken walls of the city less than four hours after their enemies had retaken the palace of Hectal. They were shocked, not at the bodies that littered the ground for miles, but at the fact that not one of them was garbed in the colors of another faction. Obviously, they had fallen to infighting amongst themselves. To many among the Southlands, this was a relief, and despite the stink of the blood and bodies as they made their way through the city, both dragon and man knew that this war could be won today.

Breaking the few troops at the entrances to a pulp, the dragons and men ran through the passages and halls of the palace, unwilling to let Journ and his top advisors escape. They would not let the Architect of War escape to start the conflict anew.

However, something was to occur that they did not foresee.

The Triumvirate, not knowing of the deaths of their troops, managed to corner Journ in the throne room of the palace. At sword point, Salin and Falsh threatened him, pleaded with him to turn his mind to the war again, to bring the southlands to their knees. Kar Basti remained as a rearguard, keeping his eyes on the passageways leading into the throne room, and it was he that shouted the alert when the troops of the southlands got closer.

All three of the Triumvirate rushed to the throne of the palace, searching it for any possible switch or lever, convinced that Journ had installed some kind of escape route from the city. Certainly, if they had been in his position, they would have begun construction on it immediately. Unfortunately for them, Journ held a great deal of trust with the people, and he had no need for a tunnel to get away from a people that would never come after him. Even if Journ had installed an escape tunnel, however, they would not have had the time to activate it. The troops of the southlands, awed that the former councilor they had thought guilty was in reality innocent, rushed into the throne room and seized the Triumvirate, disarming them in moments.

The men of the south cheered, and many of the dragons smiled reassured grins at one another. Finally, the war of the Peninsula was finished, they said to themselves as they prepared to leave the northern fortress. There would be no more death, no more conflict, they were sure of that.

The men did not make it to the door before things started to go wrong. The few torches in the room flickered, and extinguished themselves, though not a breath of wind flowed through the chamber. The men stared around, attempting to find the source of the strange happenings in the throne room, while the dozen dragons in the room readied themselves for something worse, for they knew just what was coming. The presence of their enemy, Darloen, had always been announced thusly.

The absence of light heralds the Spirit of Chaos.

As the fighters of the south gathered themselves together in a tight ball near the exit of the throne room, a high, almost tittering voice began to speak from above, near the glass ceiling of the room. “It is such a pity that the game had to end so soon, isn’t it? All the sweet blood covering the ground coming to a halt, and the beautiful music of a dying shriek and slashing blade brought to a shrieking stop? Ah, but so all good things must eventually end, don’t you agree?” the voice said in a laughing tone.

Though only the dragons were able to truly sense the buildup of power behind the words the voice said, each of the men from the southlands shivered at the feelings of crackling energy in the air, knowing that it could not be anything good.

“No matter that such good things must stop, eh, dragons, humans? Purpose was achieved, and now, there is no need for any more of you,” the giggling, laughing voice said as a glow appeared in the darkness as the energy in the air began taking physical manifestation. Before anybody in the room could say anything, before a weapon slid clear of its sheath, the energy exploded outwards towards the southerners.

The Lord of the Dragons had only moments to act, for that energy contained enough power to destroy himself, all of the other living beings in the throne room, and everything else that stood north of where the battle lines had been drawn but a week earlier, no matter what kind of shield the Dragon Lord could bring to stand against it. No matter the power that he pulled from the elements, it would not halt that wave of destruction. However, there remained the possibility of weakening it.

Summoning to him all the energy that remained available from the elements, the Lord of the Dragons shoved a shield of earth and air energy against the white light flooding towards them. Already, the other eleven dragons in the chamber lay on the floor, dead from the blast, as were most of the soldiers of the southlands. The shield stood before the blast for a moment, and then for another. For a third, it nearly seemed like it held enough power to stand before the chaotic, destructive energy.

But on the fourth second, it shattered. The shards of energy flew apart in all directions, two of them impaling the limbs of Kar Basti, inflicting several long gashes through his legs before disappearing. But the damage was done, and the defenses over the Lord of the Dragons and the Head of the Council disappeared, leaving them fully vulnerable to the murderous white light. As it slammed over them, it appeared to have killed them both, instantly, before spreading beyond the fortress of Hectal and over the northern lands.

But the Lord of the Dragons yet lived, though he knew he held to life by but a thread, and that thread would soon snap. Remaining still and gathering what little power remained in his body, and in the bodies of the other humans in the room, he bided his time, waiting for what action could yet be possible to deny the Spirit of Chaos his goal.

The light at the ceiling finally took physical shape, a vaguely human, glowing shape, but a physical shape. As it descended down from the ceiling as if born upon a set of stairs, the spirit spoke, gloating in its victory. “You know not how difficult this has been, Drazeocon,” the spirit said to the Lord of the Dragons, naming him truly. “To accomplish this, I had to be as a whisper of darkness riding the night, sliding through your lands and demesnes to find the power I needed for this. Such power remained hidden from my sight, however, until I found something that surpassed even your own power, Great Lord.”


Reaching the ground and walking across the marble floor soundlessly, the Spirit of Chaos, Darloen himself, pointed to the ring upon Sarsha’s finger. “The Old Ring. The Ring of the Council. A ring named again and again throughout history, yet never changing its most essential nature. The Ring made in the old elements of the world, before it was ordered to the satisfaction of those above, and then given not to those that deserved it, but HUMANS!” the last shouted loud enough to shake the ceiling, and crack one of the glass sections.

[Draconicon]

“Not to those of the dragon race, or to those spirits of the world that knew to use it in the best of ways, but to the humans, who used it naught but for manipulation of their own kind! Ignorant of all the power that remained within it, they used it to hold themselves together, when with but a little effort, this ring would have allowed them to bring all the other lands beyond the Peninsula under their control, and then remove this fell purpose that the Orderers of the Universe put on them!” Darloen muttered to himself, his hands spasming as he began to lose what little control that he had. “But now….now, the ring will be mine. No more will I need to leech off what little flows off of it. I shall tap into it directly, and do myself what the humans should have done long ago.”

Reaching down for the ring, the dark Spirit halted as the Lord of the Dragons stood again, dying, but not yet dead. The hesitation of his enemy allowed the dragon the chance to keep those not under Darloen’s shadow free, and he used that chance for all that it was worth.

Casting his power at the ring on the dead human’s ring, the dragon shoved what little energy he had to spare into the confines of the gem, mixing with the ancient elemental power as it did. Then, giving the Spirit of Chaos a small grin, he sealed the ring against the leeching powers of the demon and cast it far, far from the north, to a place only he knew, before finally collapsing in death. Even as a corpse, the dragon retained his smirk at denying the Spirit of Chaos his treasure.

Darloen stared at the cooling body of the Drazeocon, and began to shake. His entire form shivered as one trapped in the heart of a blizzard, the glowing form of the spirit trembling at the limits of control, before throwing his head back and yelling out to the heavens. The shout of the Chaos Spirit shrieked through the whole of the fortress, the sound high, ululating, and full of pure rage.

The former councilor, and the unfortunate architect of the war, had watched all of this with a blank stare. But as Darloen lost himself in that scream of rage, Journ Salbersk abandoned all reasoned thought, and acted for the first time on pure instinct. Grabbing the blade that Kar Basti dropped when the shards of magic impaled him, the Lord of the North charged forward against the demon, intent on destroying the being responsible for the war, terror, and death. There remained no question that the Spirit of Chaos had used him, and his people, to bring this about, and whatever else Journ tolerated against him, he would not, could not, tolerate being made a fool of, or having his people endangered.

Of course, there was little that a normal human was capable of doing against a being of Darloen's power. Merely lifting a hand, the Spirit of Chaos lifted the former councilor and threw him against the walls, the impact shattering his spine and ribs, and rupturing countless internal organs. With a grunt and a sigh, the genius of the age fell to the floor and died.

The Triumvirate who betrayed him for their own gain fared scarcely better. The anger of their true master, the Chaos Spirit, was no longer within the bounds of his control, and it lashed out over the city, over the lands around it, and over the entire lands captured by the northern troops during the war, killing and warping all those that lived within those bounds. Of the dragons within those bounds, none lived, and those outside the northern lands never recovered from the grief that overwhelmed them at the death of their lord. From that moment, dragons withdrew from the world, leaving humans to deal with human affairs.

So ended the First War, so the Salbersk Waste was created, and so ended the Council that ruled the land.

Within two hundred years of the end of the war, the once united land under the council splintered in multiple kingdoms, each ruled by their own set of rules and governors, and none of them giving the lasting peace that the Council had been able to hold. And for the next eight hundred years, though forts were erected on the borders of the Waste, and each year they were successfully manned by experienced soldiers, the memory of the First War waned. Each year, the watch grew a little less vigilant, a little less prestigious, until it became little more than punishment duty.

And all the while, Darloen watched, waiting for a chance to begin war anew.

[Taimoor]

Splendorous piece, my friend.
The refinement of the descriptions ever present and ever good, as nothing else could come to be expected out of you.

Definitely interesting to see the display of personality that is within some of these characters, downright to Drazeocon's smirk in his death.

Darkness surely isn't missing to the whole story neither... X3 I'd say that it needed some cheerful parts, but I don't believe they'd fit in there.

In the end though: Missing the "rest" now!

[Draconicon]

Chapter One

Eranil chuckled to himself as he looked out the small window of his tent. A group of at least twenty men stood outside to see him off on the trials, and he couldn’t help but smile at the number after the counting. Normally, a person considered themselves lucky if even ten people arrived to see them off, and he merited twenty? Truly, he was honored with this sendoff, even if it meant the dangers of the Trial of Trails.

As the young man stared out at the crowd, he caught sight of the one that would be his companion through the Trials. An old, almost ancient little woman that gazed back at him through the window as he watched her. Shivering a bit from the stare, even in the desert heat, Eranil lifted his gaze from her. Yurane was never someone to mess with, he had found out the hard way. And if he was honest with himself, he did not want any more of the extra attention she paid him over the last year.

Shaking his head as he let the cloth cover the opening again, Eranil turned his gaze to the equipment that given to each male undertaking their trials, and sighed a bit. "Well, no more putting this off, I guess," he muttered to himself as he stripped out of the normal tan robes of the tribe. Reaching for the armor on the only bit of furniture in the tent, a small table, he started to slide the black leather over his tanned frame.

The leather armor’s hue resembled nothing so much as a patch of the night sky with all the stars completely cleared away, and the scimitar hanging from the belt shined with the light the missing stars would have projected. Such things were impractical, compared to the weapons and armor currently in use with the tribes, and more so with the rest of the weapons that the people outside the desert used, but the relics remained functional, and that mattered more than anything else.

As the young man slid the armor over his leanly muscled body, he chuckled at how well it fit and counted himself lucky. Last year, half the people that were sent on the Trials looked as though they had been coated in mud, every body part seen, or a child in a robe meant for a giant, completely dwarfed by it. In comparison with them, the relics of the tribe fit Eranil perfectly, and he couldn't help preening a bit in the polished bronze that served as a mirror on the side of his tent.

"Isn't such puffing and posing better left for when there are women around, Eranil Dark-Mark?" a crackling voice said from the slitted opening of his tent, causing Eranil to leap in surprise, not to mention a bit of anger at the hated nickname. Turning his head, he saw Yurane's elderly head looking into his tent. "Not that your little show would have excited any of them at all, but you would have at least made the effort for some goal."

Eranil prayed that his face wouldn't blush, that the redness wouldn't erupt again, but he might as well have wished to bring the moon down onto a dinner plate. That blush came up again, as it always did from the barbs of the Placitew, and as always, it drew attention to the reason that he bore the last name of Dark-Mark. His hand rushed to his forehead to hide it, but despite his reaction, it still stood out from his forehead.

That little black circle on his forehead had been there for years, longer than he could remember. Most of the tribe had seen it, and each one of them condemned him for it, considering the mark an omen of bad things to come. No other member of the Ahrenadad tribe had any kind of birthmark, and for one of their own to have anything other than scarless, unmarked skin aroused instant anger, and often hatred, for that unfortunate being.

Yurane was the first to see the mark on his forehead, when she'd caught him in the middle of a prank. Having grabbed him by the arm and twisted him so he faced downwards towards her, his long brown hair had flipped back and revealed it.

Since then, Eranil found himself hardpressed to get any kind of time without the old woman watching him. Eventually, the only times that he felt safe became when he was out bathing, or performing his eliminations, and even those times didn't feel too safe after a while. Yurane was of the Placitew, the Readers of the Sand, after all, and they had powers that mystified him and the rest of the tribes, powers of magic that could be used to defend the tribe...or chastise its enemies.

Shivering at the memory of when he found out just how one of the Placitew dealt with those that annoyed them, Eranil forced the Readers of the Sand from his mind. Yes, one of them was to accompany him on his Trials, but at least he was even going on his Trials. It had never been certain, after all. If the chief didn't approve of the man for the Trials, the Trials simply didn't occur, and the applicant remained a child in the eyes of the tribe.

But Chief Hettchara accepted his application for the Trials, Eranil had to remind himself of that. No matter the protestations of his unworthiness he overheard from the Placitew, the chief of the Ahrenadad tribe found him worthy for the Trials, and that was all that mattered. Even if all the others of the tribe, the warriors, the priests, the Placitew thought that he wasn't ready, the chief thought he was. That was enough.

Giving himself one more check over, Eranil smiled at what he saw. As long as he kept his hair over his forehead, the mark couldn't be seen, and the rest of his appearance fared decently enough. With a height of over six feet and a well muscled body, he presented a decent figure, and his eyes were enough to capture attention with their steady stare. If only he could conceive of a way to get rid of his mark, a relationship might be possible.

That's for later, Eranil thought to himself with a shake of his head. Walking to the slitted entrance to his tent, he paused with his hand on the opening...and then slid out, walking to the group of people gathered to see him off.

The group of twenty included most of the camp, including the blacksmith and the tanner. Despite the number, however, not a one of them cracked a smile as they saw him. Most stared at him as though he were invisible, while a few, such as the smith and the tanner, looked down at him with derision in their eyes, as if he weren't good enough for the artifacts of the tribe. It was more or less what Eranil had expected, though he wished he had been wrong.

As he reached the group, Yurane stepped forward, wrapped in the grey robes of her station in the tribe, and gestured towards the natural rock wall that stood behind the camp. "Chief Hettchara awaits you there, Eranil Dark-Mark. I would suggest that you don't keep him waiting, lest you tempt him to forget he granted you the chance of attempting the Trials," the old lady said in her gravely, crackly voice. Eranil grimaced slightly, knowing how right she was, before turning and heading to the rock wall at a brisk pace.

He heard the sounds of the crowd following him, and though Yurane treaded lighter than the wind, he knew that she remained just behind him, within reach, if needed. She would never leave him alone, no matter how often that he asked for that, and as she was chosen to accompany him on his Trials, there would be no chance to get away from her anytime soon.

The walk up the wall of rock that protected the camp from the south, east, and west didn't take very long, but it taxed one's strength. The miniature mountain of brown stone provided both a barrier to winds from those three directions, and a lookout point all around. A better earlier alarm situation couldn't be asked for. When the wind and the sand came from the north, however, many grumbled at the way that their tents went flying in the bowl that the stone wall made.

As Eranil, Yurane, and the rest of the group gathered to see them off reached the top of the wall, they all paused to look down at the camp that was the home for all of them. It spread out for a couple hundred yards, with dozens of tents all sprawled out in a more or less random fashion. They all surrounded one central point in the rear of the camp, a gigantic tent that lay pressed against the wall of stone in the back of the camp. That central point was a gray tent that housed only the Chief of the Ahrenadad when he made his visits to this camp, and as such, was the most opulent of any dwelling in the place.

Of course, he chose not to give the task of the Trials to Eranil there. Standing out on the central, highest point of the rock wall of the camp, Jerrane Hettchara, chief of the entire Ahrenadad tribe, waited to give the task of the Trials. As the chief had probably been told, he certainly looked more dramatic, his bare, scarred upper body silhouetted in the sunlight as the crowd faced the rising sun. His shadow, as well as those of his spear and sword from over his shoulders, landed on the people as he gestured for Eranil to come forward.

The tall young man quickly did so, standing before his chief. Looking up at the weathered face with a smile, Eranil looked away again when Jerrane Hettchara frowned at him. Looking in a bit of confusion to Yurane and the others around him, he paused when the chief began to speak, his face turning back to the imposing giant before him.

[Draconicon]

“As much as I hate to admit it, Eranil Dark-Mark, enough have spoken in your favor to allow you to attempt the Trials. I’ll say it here and now, if it were up to me, you would never be allowed to enter the Trials. However, at the insistence of the majority of the Placitew, including Yurane Ahrenas, here,” the chief said with a gesture to the Reader of the Sands at Eranil’s side, “I have little choice but to grant your request to be allowed out on the Trials. However, what the Trial is comes at my…um…discretion.” At the last, his face became a bit clouded with confusion before regaining the iron certainty that had filled it before.

“Of course it is at your discretion, my Chief,” Eranil said, though in his mind he remained shocked. If the chief didn’t have faith in his abilities, but the Placitew did, things were a great deal different than he had thought. As he thought about it, he realized something else. It wasn’t all of the Placitew that supported him in this either, because Hettchara certainly didn’t have the brains to come up with that speech, and the word discretion in that speech proved it.

Nurawe Hettchara’s influence over her husband was the worst kept secret of the tribe. As well as being the wife of the Chieftain of the Ahrenadad, Nurawe also was a member of the Placitew, and wielded considerable influence on her own. Like Yurane, when Eranil’s mark on his forehead had been discovered, her attention had been garnered. And like Yurane, that attention was very, very difficult to get away from, though not as difficult as the older woman’s.

And now, it seemed, she was interfering in tribal politics again, using her husband to get what she wanted. It was well known that she was the brains of the Ahrenadad while Jerrane wielded the muscle of the people.

The chieftain stared down at the group for several minutes, his face still as stony as it had been at the start of his speech. The twenty two members of the camp stared back at him, waiting for his command for the Trials, all of them eager to hear just what to be assigned. As the chieftain remained in his pose before the sunrise, Yurane coughed a bit into her hand, bringing Chief Hettchara back to his senses and to the situation at hand.

"Ah, yes, the task of your Trial. As a senior member of the Placitew is accompanying you, I see no problems with the difficulty that you will be presented when you go over the mountains. You will observed the troops that are stationed near the Lamanu Pass, see what they do, where they go, how they are supplied," the chief explained, falling into a cadence of speech that was akin to the way a commander spoke when ordering his troops. "If any of them seem to be preparing for war, of any kind, you are to kill as many as you can and bring back the armor of one dead soldier as proof of the deed," he added.

Eranil's eyes widened as he stared back. "Over the-over the Lamanu Pass?! But Chieftain, that pass has been closed to our tribe for years, since the traders from the Rakshire Republic came out here! If you send me there, I'll-"

"You'll go there, and you will accomplish your assignment, Eranil Dark-Mark," Jerrane Hettchara said, unsheathing his blade and pointing off towards the west, behind the gathering of people, to the mountains beyond. They stood not fifty miles off, the peaks stretching to the sky and covered by white, as if they pulled down clouds to cloth their naked peaks. "You will cross over the Lamanu Pass, and inspect the troops of the Rakshire Republic, and you will kill all those that seem hostile that you are able to. Your alternative is to end the Trials now, uncompleted, and be banished," he added with a smirk.

Yurane stepped forward, her green eyes darkening as she glowered at the chieftain. "What has my sister Nurawe been telling you of late, Chieftain? What news have you heard that makes you wish this boy to deliver nothing less than a declaration of war to the Rakshirans? What makes you think that there is any kind of chance that even with my help he'll succeed?" the old Placitew said.

As the inhabitants of the camp watched the argument of the two major powers of the tribe, the fletcher's apprentice, a boy by the name of Kolare, stepped forward. Reaching out to try and pull the two apart, the dark haired boy found himself blocked by two blades, one of steel and one of glass, each held by one of the two he approached. Kolare looked at the blades with fear, and not a small amount of confusion. The steel blade of the chief he recognized, since the knife had been hanging from Chief Hettchara's belt just a moment ago, but the Placitew carried no weapons. Where had the glass dagger come from?

Regardless, Eranil could tell that Kolare still intended to try and seperate the two, despite the blades pointed to his throat, and no matter how little love he had for the self important apprentice, someone dying during the pre-Trial talks was the last thing he wanted. Shaking his head, Eranil reached out and yanked the fletcher's apprentice back and shoved him back to the crowd. None of them favored him with any kind of thankful glances or anything, and after a shake of his head he turned back to the chief, and Yurane, hoping that they weren't about to tear each other apart, either verbally or literally.

But the chief only looked confused, not sure what to say. Opening and closing his mouth several times, he finally thought through the situation enough to say, "The assigning of a Trial is up to me, and you can't dispute it. So I have commanded, so shall it be done," he growled out.

Not a one of the people gathered on the rock wall spoke during the staring contest of the voices of authority of the tribes, not wanting to drawn any bit of their ire. But as Yurane slowly dropped her eyes, the men gathered to watch Eranil leave sighed with relief. There wouldn't be a fight today, at least. Escorting the two departees from the wall to the borders of the camp, the group stayed back far enough to allow some conversation between the two companions.

As the two of them started walking towards the border of the camp, Eranil couldn't help but ask a question. Keeping his face forward and his voice low, he said, "With all those insults, taunts against me...why did you support me with the Placitew, and before Hettchara himself? Why did you put yourself out for me?"

Though his face never moved, he felt the anger and annoyance running through the momentary glance that his companion hit him with. Those emotions towards him were that strong. "Perhaps another time, I will explain myself. Right now, we have a journey before us. There are enough dangers before us and, to be blunt, behind us for questions right now," the Reader of the Sands said as they got closer to the edge of the camp.

From the edge of the camp, the red rock that formed the bedrock slowly faded to the brown sand of the desert, edging out to the horizon. The hills of sand shifted visibly from the storms that wracked the northern parts of the Sarshan Desert, the dunes of the sand creeping about almost like giant slugs, the landscape shifting slowly but surely. It was the way of the desert to constantly adjust.

As the two companions, old and young, stood at the border of the camp, facing into the desert, Eranil barely managed to hold back a shiver as he felt a heated glare between his shoulders. Yet another that was angry to see him going on the Trials, he knew, and it was fairly easy to guess who with the power of that anger against his back. Turning his head a bit just to be sure, Eranil saw just who he expected to see.

Dressed in white robes as all the Placitew were, Nurawe Hettchara was still easy to recognize. Standing at near the same height as her husband, Nurawe's hair was red gold, and gleamed in the light as it flowed over her face and shoulders, directed only by the wind. Even from the edge of the camp, the Reader of the Sands could be recognized on the top of the rock wall, her green eyes gleaming in the light of the morning sun.

And across that distance, she employed an annoying ability of the Placitew, the telepathy that each Reader was proficient in, at one level or another. Her thoughts flew across the distance between them in less than a second, and landed right in Eranil's mind. Even in the darkness and solitude of his own skull, Nurawe sounded pompous and cruel.

"Why do you even bother going on this quest, Dark-Mark? Its not as if anyone would miss you if you were banished. They'd cheer as they saw your retreating back, I would bet. You could leave right now, and they would be happy for your departure. It would be for the best, Eranil, if you'd just leave now. Even if you succeed on your quest, you won't be welcome back here. No one would want to be near someone so obviously a forei- ack!" The words in his mind were cut off mid rant, and another voice spoke aloud.

[Draconicon]

"Don't bother with such obvious tricks, Nurawe. Even a chieftain's bride should know better than to try fooling with the mind of a tribe member with another Placitew around. Now, go back to your tent with the Chieftain, and leave us alone," Yurane said beside him, her voice not gravelly for a moment but perfectly clear. Her voice and gaze were directed completely at the other Reader of the Sands on the rock wall, a glare that seemed completely capable of stabbing through anyone that it was directed at.

Eranil shook his head as the remnants of Nurawe's barbs faded from his mind and the echoes of Yurane's rebuke finally silenced, the twin sounds giving him a headache. While the Placitew frequently talked to members of the tribes through their telepathic abilities, there certainly was a reason that they usually gave the messages to others of their group. The sensations of having another mind linked with yours generally resulted in tremendous headache. As the pain from the headache started to fade, Eranil sighed softly in relief.

And then he cringed again at the rumble that ran through the ground and through the air as the final step of the departure ritual began. The sand covering the bedrock of the camp began to quiver and shake, almost as if it were coming to life. The sand slowly slid off of the rock, joining up with its brethren particles outside of the camp. Before the eyes of Eranil, Yurane, and their observers, the sand of the desert lifted itself into the air, and shaped itself into the form of an archway, large enough to be the envy of many palace architects.

As the archway wobbled a couple of times, Eranil caught a hint of annoyance on his companion's face out of the corner of his eyes. Each time whatever controlled the sands wavered in its control, Yurane's face grew a little more angry, a little more exasperated. As he listened, Eranil heard snatches of a rant from his guide, something along the lines of, "wonder they can do this at all...no wonder Nurawe holds them..." It didn't make much sense to Eranil, but there wasn't time right now to ask questions. His guide and companion was right about that.

"Eranil Dark-Mark, Yurane Ahrenas of the Readers of the Sand," the Chieftain's voice called out from behind them. Jerrane Hettchara had walked down from the rock wall as well, joining the rest of the camp for the final part of the farewell ritual. "You are to leave through the archway of our desert, and shall not return until your task has been completed. Until such time, you will not be of the Ahrenadad, nor of the Kasanai, nor of the Nuwramel. You shall be tribeless until your return of success."

"The southern tribes will not welcome you should you fail. We will not welcome you should you fail. But should you succeed, and return to us, you will be counted among your people, your family again, and never again shall you be considered less than full family with all of the tribe. With such thoughts to speed you along your journey, go, and may the spirits of the land grant you safe passage," Jerrane said, grimacing slightly as he lifted his spear from his back and pointed out among the dunes and shifting sand beyond the camp.

I just bet that your wife is telling you all of that to say, Eranil thought to himself, turning back from the others watching them. Even while they stood there, the arch wavered, the powers holding it weakening for a moment before steadying their grip again. But it was clear that if they didn't get through the arch soon, everyone would see it simply as the Trials being refused, and again, Eranil wasn't about to risk that kind of thing after having this much luck even being able to go on them. Letting out a small sigh, he ran for the archway, followed by the slightly slower Yurane.

As Eranil ran through the arch of sand, a tingle slid over his spine, making him shiver as he ran. As he cleared the arch and saw Yurane appear beside him, he slowly turned around, curious about what had happened to make the tingle, since he'd never heard about that happening with the others that had gone through the Trials. However, when he looked back, the camp, his home since he was born, was gone. The rock wall that formed the barrier against the elements remained visible, but all the tents and people had disappeared.

"What the-where did the camp go?" Eranil said, his head jerking from side to side as if the camp as dodging from side to side. "It was right there, right there! We went through a sand block, not a portal...didn't we?" he asked, his eyes jerking from the camp to his companion. His eyes continued darting here and there, trying to find out where the camp had disappeared to.

Yurane recognized the signs of hysteria slipping over her charge, and shook her head at how easily Eranil slipped into it. "This is going to be a long, long trip," she muttered to herself before taking a step to stop her companion's hysteria. Stepping forward, Yurane gave a strong swing of her arm and slapped Eranil right across the face. Even out here in the still desert air, the sound of hand striking cheek filled the air.

It worked as well as it always did, the shock breaking through the terror filling the young man. Stepping back again, Yurane rubbed her hand a bit before talking again. "As for the camp, for all purposes regarding us, it has disappeared. You heard what Hettchara said. Until our return after completing out task, we are dead to the tribes. We are invisible to them just as they are invisible to us. Complete, total isolation. It is meant as an incentive for us to complete this quicker. Most aren't told of this because they wouldn't believe it. You barely believe it now, don't you?" the Placitew explained with a shrug.

Eranil panted softly as he nodded, acknowledging that little fact. "Barely...but that slap convinced me that this isn't just a nightmare," he said, slowly getting his breathing under control. Rubbing his reddening cheek a bit, he added, "You're quite strong in that arm. How much practice have you had with slapping people?" Ducking as he finished that sentence, he nevertheless felt Yurane's arm flying over his head. Her arm moved quite quickly, but not quickly enough for someone that knew it was coming.

Standing again, Eranil saw that his guide was staring with disapproval. "Joking aside, Dark-Mark, we should start on our way. The nearest encampment not of the tribes is quite a journey from here in the best of times, and we both know that the desert presents those times rarely. I don't wish to die of thirst out here because we spent all our time talking when we could be walking," Yurane said as she turned towards the south. "The Great Road lies about ten days south, and there are waystations all along the way between here and there. Better yet, the road goes right through Lamanu Pass, so the Road seems our greatest chance." With no further explanation, the Reader of the Sands started forward in the direction she had indicated.

Falling into step behind her, Eranil let himself get lost in thought. He knew that there was little about the world outside that his camp that he knew about, but going right through the pass like that seemed more likely to get them killed by the guards the Raksire Republic placed on both sides of the pass. Though their traders were friendly enough with the tribes, the majority of the Republic hated the tribes of the desert, from what the warriors back in the camp had told the younglings. The soldiers had many stories of persecution from the military ventures of the Rakshirans, and none of them ended well for the tribes. That, more than anything else, made him think they were true.

"They're not true, you know," Eranil's guide said before him, her head bent forward as she walked. "The stories from the warriors."

Blushing at how easily his thoughts were read, he couldn't help but shake his head in denial. "I wasn't thinking that. Really, I was just-"

"You were thinking on it, Dark-Mark. Just as you were thinking that I am idiot for apparently just walking into their arms. Correct?" Yurane's pace never wavered as she spoke, her short, measured steps somehow making Eranil run to keep up while she just appeared to walk. "I have my own reasons for taking the road, in addition to it being the quickest and safest way over the mountains. Besides, the road is smoother and more comfortable than just wandering the desert and slopes of mountains."

"Is it really that far from here to the mountains? I'm pretty sure that the Rakshirans wouldn't have any guards on the mountains this close to the camp, would they?" Eranil asked, looking at the mountains to the west as they passed by the wall of the camp. As the southern and last part of the stone wall started to fall behind the two, Eranil watched the line of mountains appear in the wall's place.

Each mountain disappeared behind the rising slope of the next one to the north, presenting an unbroken chain of white peaks on green slopes. "The mountains are right there, Placitew Ahrenas. Couldn't we just cross them here, and avoid all the guards that are on the main roads?"

"You forget the beings that live in the mountain, Eranil. They are quite as deadly as the guards in the Pass, and not nearly as easily reasoned with. At least, that was the occassion some time ago. While the guards may have cleared the other mountains of their...predators, for lack of a better term, I don't want to chance my life on a maybe. This journey is enough of a maybe for my lifetime, and if you have any sense, for yours, to chance anything else," Yurane said, her eyes still fixated on the ground before her.

[Draconicon]

While Eranil still wasn't completely sure about this, at this point, he wasn't going to push his guide on this matter. There was nothing that bound her to help him in his way, only to guide him as she saw fit, and whatever else he dared to do back at the camp, he knew that it would be a truly bad idea to antagonize Yurane. Out in the sands with no witnesses to see what she would do...he winced at the thought of what might happen.

However, as he thought more on the matter, he gradually admitted to himself that Yurane more than likely knew what she was doing. Stories of her exploits when she was younger abounded among the Ahrenadad, and even if half the tales proved true, she had more accomplishments and adventures to her name than all but the greatest of chieftains and warriors. Sighing a bit as he fell back into step behind his guide, he said, "I suppose you are right. How long until we get to the first waystation or whatever it was?"

"Tomorrow morning, if we don't run into any trouble. Tomorrow evening, if we do, which you should hope we don't," she responded, her eyes still glued to the ground. "Now, be quiet. I need to make sure that we follow the right path to the waystation. They're the only bits of permanent shelter between the camps and the Road."

"As you say, Reader Yurane. As you say," Eranil muttered under his breath, still jogging a bit to keep up with her. Humiliating as it was to have to trail after her like this when it was his Trials that they were on, at least he had the satisfaction of being completely invisible to those of the tribe.

[Draconicon]

Gazing down from the top of the rock wall, both Nurawe and Jerrane Hettchara stared down at the Trial participants. Both outcasts, both disagreeable to the two watchers, and both now completely out of the way.

"Are you sure that they will not return from this, my dear? The fortress north of us won't fall easily, even with your powers and my soldiers," the chieftain said, his eyes not leaving the old woman and the young man as they trudged across the sand. "The city Sarshans might not be as strong as our own people, but they have the advantage in numbers. If I spend too many troops now, we won't have a chance to hold out against the other tribes, should they choose to come out on a raid."

Hiding a wince from her husband's words, Nurawe said, "They will never return. Eranil's a fool in more ways than one, and Yurane couldn't have made her way through the guards on the pass in her prime. With having to watch over her charge for the Trials, she has less than no chance to make it across. They won't return, ever." She nodded her head once for emphasis, then froze as she felt the chieftain's arm slide over her shoulders, and then down her back.

"It's been quite some time since you have shared a bed with me, my dear. Could we put aside the plans and other things for the night, and spend it together in the warmth of each others arms? I miss that," Jerrane said, his eyes glazed over as he remembered the evenings they had spent together in the past.

Though externally she remained calm, within Nurawe squirmed in contempt for the man beside her. It took most of her willpower and a reminder of what she was to accomplish here to keep from pulling away, taking that old, muscular hand off of her body, and even that was barely enough. With each continued second of touch to her backside, her resolve to remain still weakened.

It was strengthened, however, as another began speaking within her mind. A high, laughing voice that rang through her mind, whose will froze her to the spot. "Ah, ah, ah, my dear. Don't destroy what hold you have over this fool with a hasty refusal. Its taken long enough to get this 'chieftain' to listen to you as much as he does, and I won't have you through that away in a fit of pride. Don't end the game too soon, my lieutenant. We still need him for a bit longer."

Nurawe's mental barriers relaxed a bit at the sound of her lord's voice, as did her body. Ignoring the gentle pull from the man beside her, she responded to the voice in her mind. "And after the fortresses of the north are destroyed and your way is clear? May I deal with this fool then?" she asked, a hint of eagerness in her thoughts.

"Of course, my servant. Of course you may, in whatever way seems best to you," the voice said with a giggle, the volume fading as the presence pulled out of her mind. "Patience, and then you can deal whatever pain you wish to this fool, my knife of the shadows." And with that, the voice and presence of Nurawe's master disappeared from her mind.

"Well, my love? Can we go to our tent?" Jerrane said, turning from the sands to his wife just as she turned to him. At the look in her eyes, he cringed inside. Anger glowed in those green eyes, and knowledge that he didn't want to face. "Forgive me, wife. Your...our plans are more important than any kind of romp in bed that we could share," he said as he stared down in surrender.

As he felt his gaze brought back up to his wife's beautiful face, however, his smile returned. Nurawe's soft features, the red gold hair whipping over her cheeks and forehead, and above all, the green eyes that stared back out at him constituted a face that most men dreamed of. With her at his side, Jerrane felt as though the heavens themselves favored him above all others in the tribe. With her by his side, he always knew that he was the chieftain, and that she had chosen him as her husband over all the other warriors of the tribe.

"Yes, husband. Our plans are more important than that, than anything. And right now, you need to go down to your warriors and start planning for the first attack. I already have the Placitew here ready for the attack, and with both Yurane and Dark-Mark out of the way, nobody will speak out against this war. Now, go and speak to your warrior friends, and then come back to me. I'll make sure you feel better about this later, I promise." Oh, would she ever make him feel better after this. That was a promise to herself that she knew she'd keep.

Nodding a couple of times like nothing so much as an excited young child, the chieftain started down the side of the rockwall. However, a bit of his curiousity came back up about something, and he stopped, turning around. To the visible suprise of his wife, he said, "I can understand why you wanted to get rid of Yurane Ahrenas. Heaven above, I could name about fifty people off the top of my head who would like to get rid of her. But why do you hate the idea of Eranil living past the Trials?"

Nurawe stared for a moment, and then blinked a couple of times as she thought. In all honesty, the only reason that she had to order this kind of thing was that her master had ordered it. But she couldn't say that, and she couldn't leave that unreasoned. For a Placitew to do something without a reason, even a ludicrous one, never was a good thing for the Reader in question.

Returning her stare to the chieftain's face, Nurawe said, "He is a fool, and I don't like having fools around me, breathing the same air as I do."

That answer seemed to satisfy Jerrane as he turned around with a nod, heading back down to the camp and into his tent. Nurawe, on the other hand, remained on the top of the rock wall, staring back out at the still disappearing figures of the two outcasts of the tribe. Crossing her arms over her chest, she shook her head as Eranil and Yurane disappeared from her view.

"What does Darloen see in you that he wishes you dead, Dark-Mark," she whispered to herself, standing still as a statue and staring with the same intensity to the south. She left only when the sun finally crossed the sky and set again, finding her way back down the rock wall in the dark as she had done in the years before.

(end of chapter one)

[Taimoor]

Still going great, Drac. Ever so great descriptions, and now the plot being developed anew.

A minor critique is there were a few typos that disturbed a bit the reading, and a pair of words were (apparently) misused. Afraid that I read on the fly and didn't noted down the points where I saw those potential flaws.
I'll mention you something when I re-read the story to the point so far.

[Draconicon]

Good to hear critiques always, Taimoor.

[Draconicon]

Chapter 2

It didn't take Eranil that long to realize why most of the warriors of the tribe stayed close to the camp whenever possible, never leaving the rock walls and their tents unless ordered to by the chieftain. They never really left to simply defend the camp, either, and out in the desert at night, it was pretty easy to see why.

The sandstorms that punched through the shifting dunes of sand carried much of the former hills with them, and seemed to delight in slapping Eranil and Yurane in the face each time the wind blowed past them. Yurane, with her smaller stature and bent head, didn't seem to be affected very much by the sands, though the trouble that he had to deal with, Eranil doubted he would be able to tell one way or the other with her.

How the hell all this sand got into the air, even in the desert, was beyond him. Yes, there was sand on the ground all around them. Yes, the wind was strong enough to smash the dunes down and carry most of the former dune of sand with it. But that didn't mean that it should have enough power to carry all the sand in its path right into his mouth, Eranil thought to himself as he spat another mouth and throat full of sand out onto the ground again.

"Dark-Mark, if I have to listen to one more thought of complaint, you won't find the consequences appealing," Yurane muttered from a few feet in front of him before stopping without warning. "There's a waystation over in that direction..." she said, pointing south and a bit to the west, a small bit of confusion evident as her hand wavered slightly. "Strange. I haven't heard of any stations being built this close to one of our camps."

"Does it really matter if you've heard about it or not? Its a waystation, it should have shelter, and we'll be out of the sand. Lets just get going," Eranil growled as he shouldered his way past his guide, walking straight in the direction she indicated. "The sandstorm's bad enough without having to worry about other things."

"Idiot," Yurane muttered to herself, shaking her head as she followed behind him. Eranil heard that little remark, but didn't care. All he wanted to do was get out of the storm at this point, and if that meant that Yurane flung insults that had to be endured, he could deal with that.

"You'll have to deal with them for this whole trip, if you don't learn to think quieter," Yurane said with a small chuckle, followed a smile that only increased in size with the stream of curses that flew from the mouth of her charge.

Despite the sandstorm that whirled around them, buffeting them from side to side, they reached the waystation easily enough. Yurane simply continued following some unseen path through the sand, and whenever she felt that they were veering off course, she corrected her own, or, more often, Eranil's path to set them back aright.

As the sun set behind the dark streams of sand specks, the modest safety of the waystation appeared. Though quite small compared to the homes and facilities back at the camp, and absolutely a hovel compared to the stories that were told of the great cities to the south and over the mountains, the waystations always had one thing to be said for them. They remained the only parts of the desert that could sustain human life outside the camps and cities. At this point, though, Eranil didn't care about the small size of the single stone building, or the lack of anything familiar. He just wanted out of the storm.

Rushing forward and leaving Yurane to catch up with a bitten off oath, he barely avoided skewering himself on a sword as he tried to slide past the leather that covered the crawlspace into the stone hut.

Staring cross-eyed at the sharp, very sharp looking bit of metal that was less than an inch from his face, Eranil almost didn't hear the person holding the blade on him speak. "Courtesy dictates that one announce themselves before entering a possibly occupied dwelling, as would common sense. But you don't seem to have either in good measure, so consider this a lesson," the stranger said as his blade made two quick dips, the tip of the sword leaving shallow cuts in each of Eranil's shoulders.

Before Eranil could even open his mouth, Yurane yanked him from the crawlspace and gestured past the leather that covered it, the sandy ground lurching and shoving an armored man out of the stone shelter. He fell to the ground with an 'oof', his grey armor clattering a bit from the impact. Gesturing again, Yurane made the sand lift him up to a standing position before releasing it from her grasp. The particles fell to the ground again, though some few remained in the few pits of the stranger's armor.

"Now, would you mind telling me what an officer from the Taiken Empire is doing out here in the Sarshan Desert?" Yurane asked, her head cocked to the side and hands on her hips. Though her feet were covered and the sand muffled any possible sound, Eranil was convinced one of her feet was tapping in annoyance. "The last I was told, most of your countrymen had a standing hatred of the Rakshire Republic, and unless the very geography of the world's changed, that still lies between here and your homeland, right?" Her voice was almost dripping with sarcasm.

Brushing the steel of his armor, the stranger looked at himself as he spoke, examining it for damage. "The lands of the Rakshire Republic lie in the center of such a journey, that is true. However, one of honest intent may travel the roads without fear of being molested, or accosted. In all honesty, however, to the average traveler would have found the trip rather difficult, if not impossible," the man said as the last of the sand was brushed off his armor. Raising his head, his black hair covered one eye as he smiled. "But as you may have surmised, I am not average."

Yurane quite deliberately let her eyes wander over the figure of the soldier, and she said, "Average, probably not. Nevertheless, I can't see how even a captain of the Empire could make it through the Republic unmolested. Particularly you....Captain Hanton, I believe your name is, correct?"

Eranil smiled as a crack appeared in the confident face of this armored stranger, seeing that Yurane guessed correctly. That almost smug air of assurance was truly annoying, adding insult to the injury that he'd given him.

"You would be correct in your assumption of my name, madam, though I do not know how you know it. Would you do me the courtesy of telling me your own name?" the captain said, his head cocked to the side. "I believe it would level the proverbial playing field."

"It would, at that, and that's one of the reasons I don't want to tell you," Yurane responded, walking back towards the sheltering stone of the waystation. "Now, lets get inside, Dark-Mark. The storm's not going to let up for a while, and even if you still have the stamina you had this morning when we left the camp, I need some rest. As for you, Captain Hanton, feel free to join us, but be careful what you say, if you don't want to be shoved back out."

Eranil had to work hard to suppress a laugh as he watched Hanton stare for a moment at the old woman as she disappeared behind the leather door flap. She barely stood at level with the soldier's chest, and yet she'd left him in the dust, not even allowing him a chance to speak. Hanton turned to him, and said, "Is this her...normal method of dealing with people?"

"As sorry as I am to say it, that was gentle compared to her usual method of greeting strangers," Eranil said, shaking his head and looking away to hide the smile on his face. It was about time someone other than him got to be the target of the Placitew's barbs. "Come on, I don't think sticking out here in the sandstorm is really the brightest ideas, and I've listened to enough insults from her to want to hear more."

"Now, would the both of you get in here, or is the sand enough to your liking that you'd prefer to spend the evening being pelted by it?" Yurane asked from within the building, her crackly voice muffled by the leather that covered the entrance.

"Too late," Eranil muttered to himself, hunching down and walking into the stone shelter, soon followed by Captain Hanton.

[Trouble]

Really quite superior to most unpublished fiction that I have read. The descriptions and characters are solidly thought out. The only little picky problem I have is the dialogue outside the shelter in the storm. Don't get me wrong, I loved the dialogue, it was witty and made me laugh, but having been in a sandstorm (and not even a very big one) I can tell you that standing outside and exchanging insults is not what you would want to be doing. Maybe the storm was about to hit them and hadn't yet and I missed it? The storm I was in you couldn't even open your mouth without getting a mouthful of sand and grit. I can't wait to read more! :D

[Draconicon]

Thanks for the detailed bit there, Trouble. Considering I've never been in a sandstorm, or talked to one that had, I didn't really know much about it. I'll think about what can be done there to help. meanwhile, more of the story.

The inside of the building was quite bare, with five small pallets laid over the ground at even intervals. While an unlit torch dotted the wall, there were no other furnishings within the structure, and no windows to see out of the place. Yurane was already on top of a pallet and digging herself under a blanket she'd packed that morning. "Now, I'm going to sleep. You two do as you wish, but Dark-Mark...if you don't want to be left in the dust tomorrow, I would suggest you get into your bed. Right. Now," his guide muttered from beneath her blankets.

He shook his head slightly at the lump under the blanket, and then turned back to the captain that would be their company for the night. Frowning a bit, he gestured to the still open wounds on the edge of his shoulders, and said, "Did you really have to do that? I don't think a lesson like that needed to be punctuated quite like that, to be honest."

"I felt that a lesson so vital to the conservation of one's own life should be learned quickly, young...Dark-Mark, I believe your companion called you?"

"My name's Eranil Olare. Dark-Mark is a nickname that I'd really, really prefer to do without. And who's to say that I wouldn't have learned it correctly without you cutting my arms like that?" Eranil asked indignantly.

"It is more than likely that you would have, Eranil. Forgive my discourtesy with your name previously. However, regarding the cutting. Will you be forgetting this encounter anytime soon, like you would have if I had allowed you to just run in here?" the captain said, his tone slipping into a voice of courtly courtesy.

Eranil couldn't help blushing a bit in embarrassment from the reasoning. The captain did have that much right, he supposed. "Well, maybe I would have," he protested.

"No, methinks that you would have simply repeated the error a few weeks in the future, when there would not have been a way to keep you still. Young as you are, there are many ways for you to fall victim to stupidity and eagerness. Hopefully, those two cuts will allow you to remember restraint," the captain said, pulling his sword out and polishing it lightly. The blade wasn't that terrible looking now that it wasn't pointed at his face, but Eranil could tell that the blade's forty inch length was well capable of doing a great deal of damage.

"Well...I suppose you're right about that, Captain. But, if I do happen to see you again, I hope that we can greet each other without another such lesson," Eranil said with a half hearted smile. Reaching for one of the pallets, he said, "I'll remember that lesson, but don't bet on getting a thank you for giving it to me,” he added with a grunt, the single blanket the pallet came with sliding over his head.

“To be honest, I never expect thanks for anything, Ernail. Not for a long time, now,” the captain said from his corner of the room, a cloth and whetstone still working over the blade as he watched his sheltermates fall asleep. Shaking his head a bit, he sighed. “Please, please don’t be heading back over the mountains, you two…Orderer above, don’t be heading to the Republic…”

~~~

Eranil woke up as a howl broke through the air outside the shelter, leaping from his pallet and hurrying to the crawlspace of the shelter. No sand blew through the air, which he considered a plus at least. It meant that there wouldn’t be as much trouble with traveling when they left the next day. The lack of sand in the air also meant that Eranil had absolutely no trouble seeing the pack of border wolves just outside the stone hut.

“As if the world needed to toss another bit of bad luck into my life,” he muttered to himself as he closed the flap back down. Walking to one side of the hut, Eranil quietly pulled out the scimitar attached to his hip, examining it as he struggled to remember the lessons that everyone was taught about the creatures around the border. They weren’t always caught by the soldiers in the forts, so the members of the tribes needed to know at least a little bit about them to make sure they could defend themselves from those creatures. The border saw more than its fair share of nasty creatures, ranging from bloodthirsting avian hybrids to flesh hungry hounds and even some things that were entirely too close to humankind.

Border wolves ranked somewhere in the moderate danger range, mostly because they weren’t all that dangerous alone. Most packs never ventured beyond Salbersk Waste, and when they did, the guards at the forts cut down most of the pack. At most, people might see three wolves together in an attempt to make a new pack.

But he’d seen almost twenty of them outside, twice the size of a usual pack even in the Waste itself.

“Worry later, act now,” Eranil muttered to himself, shaking his head to clear it a bit. He reached out and shook Yurane’s shoulder, whispering, “Yurane, we got quite a bit of trouble outside. A lot, lot of trouble.”

“Ugh, better be a heck of a lot of trouble for you to wake me up right now, Dark-Mark,” she muttered, turning her gaze to him. The annoyed look on her face shifted to one of concern rather quickly as she muttered, “So many border wolves, this far south…What is the problem with the soldiers in the forts?!” Slapping herself awake, she toed the ribs of the soldier they were sharing the structure with. “Get up.”

Captain Hanton snorted lightly, his sword drawn and held against the throat of the old woman before he rose even half out of his own blankets. He soon withdrew it with a muttered apology as he saw who he was threatening, however. “My apologies, Madame. For what reason did you wake me, though, pray tell?” he asked, groaning a bit as he stood up and started pulling on his armor. “You, Eranil, aid me in garbing myself in mine armor.”

Rolling his eyes with a sigh, Eranil got up and stood behind the captain, doing as he was directed in sliding the armor over his form. Yurane, on the other hand, was pacing around a little bit, looking from time to time at the crawlspace entrance to the building. “We have border wolves out there, lots of them, Captain. You know what those are, I assume.”

Captain Hanton shook his head. “They are not familiar to me, Madame. Would you be so kind as to tell me what they are so I know what we face?”

“They are wolves, equal in size to a small packhorse, and about three times as vicious as any bandit group you may have seen in your career, captain. Their teeth are quite capable of biting through chain or leather armor, and they learn from most fights they’ve been in. From how this pack is circling this building, they’ve learned enough about fighting people to be cautious,” Yurane said crisply and quickly, stopping her pacing and taking another quick look outside. “Damn, but I wish these structures had windows. You’re blind to anything happening outside.”

“Blind, perhaps, but you are also far more defensible. We cannot be attacked by such beasts without some warning, and as long as we stay within this structure, they cannot come at us more than one at a time, correct?” the captain asked, drawing his blade from its sheath.

“Wrong, captain, very wrong,” Yurane answered, pointing to some rising bumps in the floor. “They’re also notoriously good at burrowing past human barriers.”

Eranil yanked the ceremonial scimitar from his side as the first border wolf’s snout broke the earth, but Captain Hanton was already on the attack, his straighter blade slashing through the tip of the nose in a warning blow.

The howl that followed showed just how ignored that warning was as three more of the wriggling bumps of earth burst, followed by three more of the border wolves as they worked their way out of the ground and onto their feet. They were just as big as Yurane described, and Eranil nearly dropped his blade at the sight of their teeth, each one yellowed and the size of a small knife, and each looked about as sharp as one.

As one, they leapt from their spot next to their holes at the small group gathered inside the stone hut, their teeth snapping in eagerness to tear them apart. Put together, those three wolves were at least as dangerous as a squad of soldiers, Eranil knew from his lessons. Fortunately for anyone that fought them, there was a weak spot that everyone was also taught.

Ducking the leap, Eranil brought the scimitar forward under the wolf, slashing at the leg muscles. He missed the left, but slashed right through the muscles of the right leg of his wolf, while Yurane to his left managed to get both hind legs of hers.

“Why wound them when you can finish them?” Captain Hanton asked, holding his own wolf back by the collar, his blade dropped on the ground at his side, dropped when he realized he needed two hands to hold this beast back from himself. “Just kill them and get this over with,” he yelled, dodging a snap of the jaws of his wolf.

“Simple, captain,” Yurane said as she flicked a hand at the holes in the floor, covering them with more sand and muffling the resulting yelps from other wolves trying to dig their way in. “Show him, Eranil.”

Shrugging slightly, the young man walked over to one of the wounded wolves and swung his scimitar as hard as he could at the neck of the canine…and flinched back, his blade rebounding from the beast. Leaping back to avoid the bite from the wounded but still deadly animal, he said, “These things have bones thicker than most blades, Captain. Most killing strokes can’t get through, so we wound them first to give us a bit more time.” While he explained, Yurane reached over and slashed the legs of the wolf still trying to eat the captain’s face off.

[Draconicon]

Also, Trouble?

Some of the dialogue they had was rather close to the shelter. That close to it, the storm and the wind driving the sand would be mellowed out a bit, and would flow around them rather than against them, I would think.

[Trouble]

Ok, so reread that section, and I guess yes, ducking behind a wall or something similar would keep the dust to a minimum but it'd have to be very tall and sturdy.

Anyway my own sandstorm experience was actually a massive dust devil, and when I say massive I mean the central eye took about a minute to pass over me before reaching the other side, long enough for me to glance up and see the second wall of dust coming at me. (I happened to be down on my face in the middle of a field at the time with no shelter at all, holding onto the grain for dear life because I felt like I could get swept up in it like Dorthy and Toto!) The dust felt like stinging bugs pricking every inch of my body and when I got back to the house my skin was all red and raw like I'd just been sanded. Not one of my favorite experiences ever. The changes you made add much more realism. :D

[Draconicon]

Um, I didn't change anything. That was more of the story.

And thanks for that information.

[Draconicon]

Another update, if anyone here cares anymore.

“So I see,” the captain muttered, getting up and away from the three wolves, grabbing his blade as he did.

They all stood in the center of the floor now, each person facing one of the wolves. Captain Hanton looked over his shoulder, asking, “Now, is there a way, perchance, to kill them now that they have lost much of their speed and mobility?”

“Of course. Stab them in the eye,” Yurane muttered, her dagger blade held low and close to her body.

“Just don’t miss and stab at their skull,” Eranil added, his own scimitar held in a two handed grip, the tip angled forward towards his wolf. “You miss then, you won’t have a chance to pull back.”

On a silent count of three, both Eranil and Yurane leapt forward, slashing for the eyes of the wolves they’d picked. Yurane managed her own wolf easily enough, the dagger slamming into the left eye socket and felling it almost instantly. Eranil, on the other hand, was having more than a little bit of difficulties with his own wolf.

As his blade had come down, the wolf dodged just enough to the side for the tip of the scimitar to hook into the eye socket and lodge itself there, rather than penetrating far enough to kill it. Instead, the border wolf only got very, very angry. Howling in pain, it reared its head back, lodging the blade in further and yanking Eranil up and onto its back.

“Dark-Mark! Captain, help me!” Yurane yelled, pulling her dagger out of the wolf corpse and running for the now bucking canine.

The captain had his own problems, though. His border wolf leapt forward, and even now had his sword clenched between its teeth. He couldn’t yank it free, and the wolf wouldn’t let go, and if he dared to let go with one hand to reach for another weapon, he’d lose this one and be defenseless.

Eranil watched the captain from his seat on the bucking wolf, its head tossing side to side to dislodge the blade that was causing it so much pain and to dodge the dagger that was trying to bury itself in its other eye. Even with those distractions, though, Eranil saw the captain suddenly let go of his blade…and then plunge his armored fingers into one eye of the beast. They were strong enough and the blow landed with enough force that the eyeball just collapsed around the steel finger as the wolf collapsed, dead or dying.

With both Yurane and the captain now fighting against Eranil’s impromptu mount, it went down in short order. Pinned down by the armored body of their spur of the moment ally, it had no choice but to stare into the face of its killer as the short dagger was plunged into its other eye.

Yurane sighed softly as she stood again, leaving the blade planted in the eye socket of the dead wolf. Captain Hanton soon followed suit, and joined the old woman in staring down at Eranil, pinned underneath the dead wolf. As he struggled a bit, trying to get out from under the body that weighed as much as a horse, both of them started to laugh a bit, the captain pulling a cloth from his waist and wiping the blood and tissue from his armor.

“Come on, you two, help me up!” he muttered, his struggles barely enough to shift the beast a bit from underneath, finally stopping when his best efforts didn’t so much as budge it an inch. Looking up at the captain with an exasperated stare, he said, “You had to pin this thing with me below it, didn’t you? You just had to…”

The captain, still cleaning the remnants of an eye from his gauntlet, asked, “Would you have preferred us to wait until you had been bucked from his back? Such a thing would have freed you, I am sure. Freed you to be eaten, true, but you wouldn’t have been pinned, would you?”

Yurane chuckled a bit as Eranil blushed, groaning a bit as he gave another push. “I get the point, captain. Now, if you feel your armor is clean enough, perhaps you could get this thing off of me?!” Eranil said, gesturing to the body atop him with his single free hand. “It feels like its trying to crush me into the sands here.”

Captain Hanton’s face was completely blank as he rolled the border wolf off of Eranil, and it stayed that way as he helped the young man to his feet. However, Yurane seemed to be under no such restraints, and she smiled, content to chuckle softly while her charge got to his feet.

Groaning to himself, Eranil pointed over to the leather opening of their shelter. “Shouldn’t we do something about that before more of the wolves get in here?”

He watched as he walked, still chuckling, over to the entrance. Waving her hand around a couple of times and whispering words that he couldn’t quite make out, she used her magic to pull the sand in the area around the entrance and harden it. When she finished almost twenty minutes later, it appeared as though there never had been a hole in the building. “That should hold them until morning,” she muttered to herself as she walked back over to the other two.

“Perhaps it shall, but if you will forgive me, Madame, I shall keep watch until the morn. If these creatures are kin to wolves at all, maybe they shall have left rather than wait in fruitless stasis beyond these stone walls,” the captain said, taking up a reclining post next to the spot where the hole had been. “Rest well, Madame, Eranil. I shall guard your sleep.”

Eranil shook his head a bit as he went back to his pallet, and turned to Yurane as she lay down on her own. “He’s a bit full of himself, isn’t he?” he whispered to the Reader of the Sands.

“Somewhat, yes, but from what I know, he has some right to feel that way,” Yurane said in return, turning over and closing her eyes.

“What is that supposed to mean?!” he hissed, staring at Yurane’s back. But she didn’t even turn around, let alone say anything. Sighing to himself, he turned over as well, presenting his back to his guide and slowly drifting off into slumber.

~~~
Naretius Hanton watched the sleeping pair from his spot at the entrance of their little shelter, and sighed softly to himself as he did. Even in the short time that he’d been around these two, he could tell that they were not ordinary travelers, despite the fact that was what they seemed.

The fact that the old woman knew his name gave him pause enough, but the mark on the forehead of the boy seemed stranger still. He’d never heard of a birthmark like that, save in the case of the Ashane family, and they’d disappeared years ago.

He leaned back a bit more against the stone wall, his sword across his lap as he remembered the last lady of the Ashane family, a great woman any way that one measured it.

“She was your mistress a long time ago, was she not, Captain Hanton,” the old woman said as she got up from her pallet. Her face remained impassive, despite the jolt of surprise she’d given the man. “Valera Ashane was your mistress, and your commander, was she not?”

He stared at her, his eyebrows drawn down and his face otherwise neutral. “However you know this information, madam, I would prefer to not speak of it. That was a long time ago, and I doubt anyone out there cares about her any longer. She is better left in the unknown grave she was buried in when she died than discussed among the living,” the captain said, turning his gaze from the old woman.

Yurane tilted her head to the side a bit, her eyes boring into the captain’s head. “She was your superior, the last of the great family you served all our life. You were the foremost of her armsmen, standing with her and leading her men during each of the skirmishes that were called. You stood before the border raids that came from the Waste. You-“

“You talk as if you knew me from my youth, madame. Now, you have proved you knew me, and where I stood with Lady Ashane. Please, sleep, and cease your speaking. Wherever you are bound on the morrow, you shall need your strength to pass through the desert,” Naretius muttered with a growl, resuming his reclined, guarded position.

“Think what you will, Naretius Hanton,” he heard, the old woman’s voice echoing slightly as she turned her back on him. “Think what you will, but do your best not to lie to yourself.”

[Draconicon]

Another update, I'm starting to think this is pointless.

Morning came quickly, as did the reminders of the wolves that sat outside the building that protected them from the sandstorm. Eranil shook his head a bit as he saw the captain still by the covered hole, and slowly got to his feet. “You don’t have any trust in her power, do you?” he asked.

“I would think that is a trifle obvious, Eranil,” Captain Hanton muttered as he got up as well, finally sheathing his sword. “It is unnatural, such power. I am a little surprised to see you take it so calmly, to be completely honest.”

“You haven’t been around the tribes at all, have you, captain?” Eranil said with a chuckle and shake of his head. Belting his scimitar around his waist, he said, “You’ll have to get used to that if you plan to head further north. You’ll be seeing that and a lot more.”

Captain Hanton cocked his head to the side as he heard that, and then walked over to Eranil. “What do you mean by that, pray tell? Do you mean to imply that more men and women use this…ability where you come from?”

“Of course,” Eranil said as he continued pulling his equipment over himself. “The Readers of the Sand all have such power. They’re some of our best protectors, and fight alongside the warriors when war comes to call.” He continued to garb himself in the armor he had been wearing the day before as he spoke, the black leather soon covering him completely.

“But...but how could any mortal wield such power? I have not heard of any being in the civilized lands mention such things in any of the lessons the people are taught.”

“Nor are those lessons likely to change anytime soon, unless everyone finds a great deal more tolerance towards others than they already have,” Yurane muttered from her pallet. “Now that we’re all awake, though reluctantly for my part, does anyone have a suggestion of getting around the border wolves out there? I really would rather not be pushing them away with the sand all the way from here to the mountains.”

“Well, we…we could-“ Eranil muttered.

“Mountains? You say the mountains? You plan to go over the pass?!” the captain said, staring at the both of them. “Please, please say you are not. A couple of foreigners running around the Rakshire Republic is the last thing that the western lands need.”

Both Yurane and Eranil turned from their conversation at that outburst, Eranil confused, and Yurane mixed. Marching over to the captain and grabbing him by the collar, she yanked him down to her level, staring right into her eyes. “Would you care to elaborate on that statement, or shall I just take a peak into your mind?”

Eranil watched in a bit of confusion, the soldier and his guide both suddenly at each other’s throats. “What’s going on? What happened to the cooperation that was here just a second ago?”

“This man knows something about the Republic, and what we’re going to be seeing when we get there,” Yurane said, her gaze not leaving the captain’s eyes. “And I would prefer to know what’s going to be greeting us there now rather than later.”

The captain’s eyes stared wildly, grunting as he tried to pull free from the iron grip of the old woman. As much as he squirmed and pulled back, though, he couldn’t quite get free. Her grip didn’t waver an inch, and neither did her position. Staring up into his eyes, she shook her head. “I suppose it’s the hard way for you, then.”

Eranil shook his head as he heard Yurane’s words, knowing that the captain would be in for it now. Looking away just as the captains grunts and groans of pain filled the air, Eranil did his best to block out the muttered words from his guide, but wasn’t entirely successful.

“Republic sold…making rounds to th…cities under si…” was all that he heard. Incomplete, but it didn’t need to be complete to scare the hell out of him.

As the captain finally fell to the ground, his eyes rolling back in his head, Eranil ran over to catch his guide as she nearly fell beside him. “What happened, Yurane?! What’s going on?”

She panted as she turned her gaze back to Eranil, shaking herself free from his grip and using the wall to help herself up. “His mental walls were stronger than I thought they would be, but the information behind them was quite interesting…quite, quite interesting.”

Eranil waited eagerly to hear what that information was. After several minutes of silence, though, he broke his own silence and said, “And? What was it?”

“I’ll tell you when we’re away from here and somewhere safer. Preferably somewhere along the road and closer to the mountain,” Yurane said, waving her hand at the blocked entrance to the desert outside. “Come on. If we hurry, surprise should carry us right past the border wolves.”

Groaning as Yurane dragged him by the arm through the crawlspace and jumping to his feet, Eranil followed as quickly as he was able across the desert sounds. Seconds after they cleared the outer circle of border wolves surrounding the hut, the growls and yelps of the hunters erupted behind them, the pack breaking out of their shock and following them.

Their legs pumping hard over the dunes, Eranil and Yurane dodged back and forth, over the small hills of sand and around the larger ones. Despite the speed they had, though, the wolves still nipped at their heels, the teeth more than once taking a chunk out of their footwear or leggings.

“So…you still think…running…was a good idea?” Eranil muttered, risking a glance back. The pony sized wolves were still right behind them, their brown fur rustling in the wind their passage created. Their jaws snapped down on the air fast enough to make an audible crack, a whip to drive them further and faster.

Yurane didn’t answer, flinging her hand from the sand behind them into the eyes of the wolves. Taking advantage of the momentary blindness of the predators, Eranil pulled his guide in another direction, veering left of their previous path.

“Maybe…maybe not…but we have to…move now…talk later,” Yurane panted as they passed a dune of sand.

Turning around again, Eranil couldn’t see the wolves, and sat down with a sigh. Yurane joined him a second later, panting heavily and rubbing her forehead. “We can’t stay…here long…They’ll be after…us again soon,” she whispered.

“I don’t know…how much longer I can run…” he grunted, his knees pulled to his chest and his face against his arms, sucking in his breath as fast as he could. “They’re so fast…Any more ideas…of how to get rid of them?”

“A couple…but not for this many…and not when they’re…this close,” Yurane muttered, her hands busy in the sand. Pulling them from the desert to her chest, a knife in her hands where there was once sand, she turned back to Eranil as the sounds of the wolves passage filled the air again. “How many do you think you can kill with your scimitar?”

Looking down at his sheathed weapon, Eranil slid it out, the curved steel reflecting his image back at him as he stared at it. The metal didn’t reflect light so much as it seemed to absorb it, the dark metal a strange contrast to the many other blades he’d seen the warriors of the tribe use.

“Well?”

“…Two. Maybe three, if I’m lucky,” Eranil muttered. Freeing his blade from the sheath and turning his head to peer around the dune, he saw the wolves were not far back, only about thirty feet from their resting place. “I really, really don’t feel lucky.”

“A shame. I was hoping for at least five…maybe I can make up for that with my own weapon,” Yurane said, looking at her knife and shaking her head. “Maybe not.”

Eranil crouched down as he listened to Yurane speak, listening to the increasing volume of the running steps of the border wolves. They were getting louder and louder, even over the sand, their immense wait and quick pace crunching the sand beneath their paws.

Just as they were about to pass around their dune and surround both himself and Yurane, Eranil leapt out and sliced down with his scimitar just where the eyes met the snout of one wolf, his blade bouncing off of the bones beneath as expected. However, he had swung hard enough to send that wolf falling forward, and its dead weight stopped another couple of them behind it.

Not that the delay mattered that much to the other wolves. With seventeen wolves working together in a hunt, there wasn’t much Eranil could do to stop them. Yurane, Eranil, and the wolves all knew that the delay was but a temporary thing.

Landing on his feet on the other side of the wolf he’d stopped, Eranil leapt forward again, his blade thrusting down into the eye socket of one wolf. Breathing a small sigh of relief that this time it slid in far enough for an instant kill rather than a repeat of what happened back at the shelter, he yanked his blade free just in time to block the bite of another wolf, the blade gripped in the jaws of his new attacker.

“Yurane, a little help?” he yelled, falling to the ground from the force of the border wolf’s attack. He barely managed to keep a grip on his blade, the tugging jaws of the wolf above him nearly yanking it from his hands. The blood falling from the sides of his assailant’s mouth didn’t really help matters, nor did the wounds the blood poured from seem to deter the wolf.

[Draconicon]

“I’m a little…busy here!” she yelled back, slashing the hamstrings of several wolves before waving her hand, covering them in a wash of sand, leaving only their heads sticking out. Before she could move in for the kill, though, three other wolves charged her, forcing her away long enough for the other wolves to get free again.

Eranil looked back at his guide from where he lay pinned, his body sinking into the sand from the pressure the wolf above was exerting. No matter how he moved his sword, it just seemed to lodge deeper in the jaws of the border wolf, and the blood that squirted out just made it that much harder to hold onto his blade.

His body half buried in the sand, Eranil stared up at the wolf that glared back down at him. As the wolf’s blood dripped off of his blade back to his face, he couldn’t help but wonder if this was it. Was this how he was going to die, crushed between a monster wolf and the desert sands?

A blurred arrow that slammed into the wolf’s eye socket, followed by the collapse of the canine above him, was his answer. Scrambling out from underneath the body of his attacker, Eranil looked back to where that arrow had come from, and couldn’t help but keep staring for a moment.

Letting loose another arrow from his position at the top of sand dune ahead of them, Naretius Hanton yelled, “Battle calls, Eranil. Defend yourself from these dogs!”

The arrows flew swift and sure from the soldier’s bow, slicing through the air and into the eye sockets of several wolves as Yurane and Eranil pulled back, running backwards towards the captain. They never stopped watching the approaching wolves, their blades snaking out and striking any wolf that dared get too close.

The arrows were making all the difference in the fight, each buzzing flight spelling the end of another wolf, or at the least causing one to fall back in pain. With Yurane and Eranil standing in front of him, using dagger and scimitar to cut down the wolves that thought to get closer to cut down Naretius, the rest of the battle went by quickly, the wolves dying by droves, until only two of the once twenty strong pack fled. Their quick pace kicked up blasts of sand behind them, creating little mini dunes that marked their path.

Eranil watched the border wolves run for over a minute, a smile of relief slowly building and finally dominating his face as he gradually realized that he was safe, that they were all safe. Raising his fist and sword into the air with a yell of triumph, Eranil turned with a smile to both his guide and the captain. He was sure they were just as happy as him.

Instead of seeing the happy relief that he was feeling, however, all he saw was the two of them glaring at each other. Yurane had her dagger at the ready, while the captain had an arrow half nocked in his bow, and each looked ready to risk their life to put the other down.

“I thought you were out cold when we left,” Yurane muttered, the dagger in her hand twitching, as if it itched to be used.
“I was, but you were a trifle loud as you left, and it was sufficient to wake me,” Captain Hanton said in return, his eyes not leaving Yurane’s dagger. “It was perhaps fortunate for you that I did wake up, for it seemed as though you were in a great deal of trouble with those…border wolves, did you call them?”

“We were handling them well enough without you. A couple more seconds, and Eranil would have killed his one, and could have helped me,” she spat back at him.

“He was clearly losing, madam. I wish I could say such less harshly, but he was losing. More to the point, you were barely holding your own with the wolves. My actions may not have been asked for, nor do they request gratitude, but they do not merit such hatred,” Naretius said, unnocking his arrow and unstringing his bow, putting each in their appropriate place over his shoulder.

“Oh, so rich, hearing a captain of Taika preaching etiquette after all the massacres that have taken place after the battles your emperor picks,” Yurane said in a low growl. “You think you’re so much better when you took place in those massacres too? When you cut down man after man, women holding their child, at the order of a superior that never came out of his palace? Don’t bother trying to preach manners and protocol to me, Captain, not with such stains as that on your history.”

Each statement made the captain visibly wilt, his shoulders hunching as his gaze fell. “Will you…stop reading my…mind…” he muttered. “I already was punished…for that…I don’t need…more now.”

Yurane continued her tirade for another few minutes, her words sharp enough to lash the hide off of a man. Eranil listened to the whole thing, and barely managed to keep from flinching back himself, some of the insults were so foul, and he couldn’t help but sigh in relief when his guide’s voice finally quieted down.

Seeing the captain’s mouth opening again, Eranil jumped between him and Yurane quickly, his hand landing on Naretius’s mouth. “Okay, we’ve finished yelling at each other for now, we’re alive…now, can we please not start again? He did save us, after all, Yurane.”

Eranil turned back to the captain just in time to see his eyes widen, and he quickly removed his hand from the soldier’s mouth. “Is…something the matter, Captain?” he asked.

“You said…her name is Yurane? Yurane…Ahrenas?”

Eranil backed away, his eyes widening somewhat at the way that their rescuer was acting. “Yes…but why does that name matter?”

The captain looked from Eranil to Yurane, and then back again, shaking his head a couple of times and trying to speak. However, for the first couple attempts, all Eranil managed to make out were stammered syllables that made absolutely no sense.

When he finally seemed to get himself under control, the captain said, “Why are you over here with the heir of House Ashane, Yurane?”

[Faolan MacFaoltiarna]

I just got done reading this over for the first time, and I have an observation or two:

1. Your opening intro... while it does give quite a bit of background, the info dump can be hard on readers. It may have worked for Eddings and Tolkien, but it is not something that should be done that often. It's better to 'show' what's going on, or dribble the background in rather than dropping a block on folks.

2. I have a similar problem to yours when writing... many of my paragraphs are the same length. The lack of change between the paragraphs can cause the reader's eyes to slide right over them. If possible (again, I stress I have the same problem), try to vary the lenghts more. I will say that the later updates are better for this than the earlier ones.

3. Regarding the sandstorm/duststorm issue... or anything else that you might not have first or second hand experience with: research! Look up 'surviving a sandstorm' or 'effects of a sandstorm' to get a feel for what does or can happen. Being a writer, of any stripe, involves quite a bit of research into things you might never otherwise think to look at. :)

Okay, enough critiquing. Over all, I'd say that you're doing quite well with this. :) Don't feel you have to write for others... write because the story wants to be told. Don't let your ego be the driving factor, that's the story's job. :)

[Draconicon]

Thank you, thank you, thank you for someone finally replying, and with both helpful and positive criticisms.

[Faolan MacFaoltiarna]

Any time. :) I might recommend that you look into http://www.fmwriters.com It's a site I belong to that is geared towards those who aspire to write and be published. They've been quite a bit of help to me. :) I'm celticwolf72 there.

[Draconicon]

Thanks, but no thanks. I just have a not so good feeling the moment I went there.

[Faolan MacFaoltiarna]

Fair enough. :)