Darsidian Myths, A Promise Heard

Chapter 36

Jayden felt guilty as he sprinted away from Lauren and Rufus. He wasn't just running away from his bodyguards, he was running away from his friends. He knew they just wanted to protect him from danger but he had to stop his dream from coming true or everyone in the castle would die.

He rounded a street corner and came upon the gate to the castle wall. The door had been completely destroyed. What remained of the gate were mere splinters and fragments on loose hinges. He assumed the damage had been done by Garcia. Jayden couldn't imagine anything else but a wizard causing such damage.

Without a second thought Jayden ran through the gate. Once through he found himself in a large courtyard with a darsidian well placed in the middle of the area. To his dismay the battle was still ongoing. I'ra, lunvarin and humans were all locked in a battle to the death. The ground was strewn with the bodies of the dead and wounded from both sides.

The I'ra looked exactly like Thratcher from Borderland. They had orange hair and green skin like an ogre yet they were much thinner and smaller than their undead slaves. Their armor was mismatched and cheaply made. They looked more like a common thug than anything else.

What disturbed Jayden the most about these monsters was their reaction to the surrounding battle. They were cackling and smiling as they taunted their enemies. They were enjoying the bloodshed, as if it was some sort of game to them.

Before someone had a chance to attack him he took the opportunity to look across the courtyard. Through the sea of people he spotted the destroyed gates to the castle. Inside the structure another skirmish was taking place. Everyone was cramped haphazardly in the building's vast hall. There was an obnoxious number of I'ra inside the castle but the combined forces of lunvarin and humans seemed to rival their enemy.

As he studied the interior of the castle he suddenly froze. In the middle of the conflict was Gareth. His brother was completely surrounded by I'ra who were frantically protecting him from the lunvarin and human host.

Gareth looked completely different, almost unrecognizable. There was a malicious look in his eyes accompanied by heavy shadows that lay beneath them. His short hair from before was now long and unkempt with a greasy sheen to it, he even had a beard that had a twisted and gnarled look. He was wearing chainmail, gauntlets, armored footwear with greaves attached along with the crimson tabard the varkin soldiers wore. He looked like a barbarian.

Jayden was mortified when he saw his brother cutting down varkin and lunvarin soldiers with a massive two-handed sword. Anyone that drew near Gareth that wasn't an I'ra was instantly slain. As Jayden watched his brother's heinous actions he knew the man he was watching wasn't his brother, but a puppet created by Elincia.

Without a plan of any sort he bolted through the crowd and into the castle. Once inside he was instantly overwhelmed by his surroundings.

The throne room was a massive hall composed of two floors. Each level was packed with humans, I'ra, and lunvarin fighting for their lives. The middle of the room was completely out in the open yet there were so much people he could barely find space to move. To the sides of the area were pillars supporting the upper floor, and at the far end he glimpsed an empty throne between two spiraling staircases. But all of these details didn't surprise him. What surprised him was he had seen all of this before, in his dream. Even as he remembered everything he saw the same banner from his vision hanging from the second floor railings.

The throne room was beyond chaotic. People were fighting everywhere; in the middle of the room, around the pillars, on the staircases, and even on the upper floor. As the conflict ensued individuals lay on the floor screaming in agony as they held their wounds. To Jayden's shock people would be thrown from the upper floor as the seconds went by.