Strion: War of the Realms

Chapter 1: Zinio

Everything around me is black. There is no light but I can still see my arms and legs. I take a few steps forward and there is nothing, there is no end to this room. Then there is a loud sound like an explosion. A comet landed about 500 metres from me. I run over to it, wasting no time. I look over the pit it has created.

The comet is about 10 metres tall and wide. All around it is fire and a strange, thick, red liquid. I run my fingers through some of the liquid. I bring it up to my nose and I waft a bit of the smell.

"Is this blood?" I say into nothingness. Immediately after I say that a massive, black apparition appears in front of me with a humongous axe. He swings and just as the axe hits me, I wake up.

I jolt up, immediately checking my surroundings.

"Good, nothing's here..." I breathe a sigh of relief and look out the window. The sky is a pale blue with the two suns of our world shining, bright through my window. I groaned before finally getting up.

I walked over and put on some clothes; a black linen shirt, brown trousers, and my black leather boots that I made myself. I walked over to the mirror and fixed my hair - when I say I fixed it I mean I combed it, then messed it up again. I then just looked at myself for a minute, I have a skinny body but I'm not weak. I train in survival skills and swordplay with my father every day. I have very profound features, such as one greenish-blueish eye and one that is a bright, almost neon purple, and thick eyebrows that usually are in a scowl but now... they look almost fearful. I also have a medium sized, but very sloped nose, while my face is very sharp and not rounded like others of my kind. I get up and run downstairs to say good morning to my father.

"Good morning, Father!" I say joyously, attempting to hide any lingering fear from my dream.

" Good morning Zinio, did you sleep well?" He responds while cleaning the anvil he loves so much. He is a Blacksmith, one of the best and well known elvish smiths. He shares little to no facial features with me but we are both survivalists. His round face and thin eyebrows are dripping sweat, he obviously has just finished an order and was cleaning up ash and dust from the forging process. His body isn't thin like most elves it is tall and heavily muscled from creating these weapons.

"Yeah I slept great!" I continue to smile as to not make him worry.

"Good! Do you remember what happens today, Zinio?" He questions me with a huge smile. I think for a moment not remembering. "You will forge your sword today." He responds a little bit sad at me not remembering something this big. I light up instantly.

I pick to make it out of mithril and to make a cleaver. A cleaver is a sword with a long blade about 2 and a half meters and about third a meter wide. It is thicker than most blades at about a tenth of a meter thick. They are heavy at about 50 kilos. I put on my smithing clothes and begin to work on the blade.

It takes about a week before I have the final product. A black cleaver blade with a strong hilt with a blue gem in the center. It has a white torn cloth that covers the hand hold, falling off the blade down about 2 meters. I pick it up using only one arm.

"It's ... light..." I say staring into the blackness of the blade. My father pushes the blade breaking the trance I was in from looking at the blade so deeply.

"It's late son, we should sleep." He tells me firmly.

I agree and walk off to bed putting the blade down next to my bed. I drift off to sleep.

I awake at the sound of screams around our house. I get up and throw on clothes and a black robe I had lying around before running outside. I become instantly pale and get sick to my stomach at the sight in front of me. Orcs, orcs everywhere, attacking our village. There are burning huts surrounding me and elves, my own kin, on their spears mounted proudly in the ground. Hundreds of orcs are rushing through the town center.

Father, I think to myself. I panic and begin to look for him. At that same moment, I hear the cry of an orc, the sound is so loud my eardrums pop and it reverberates in the surrounding woods. At that moment I knew that my father was fighting back.

I rushed back to my house, I ran up to my room and grabbed my sword. As soon as I grabbed it an orc began attacking me, it scratched along my cheek and it left a deep wound between my eyebrow and left eye.

He jumped on top of me and I was hanging over the edge of a huge hole, I threw my arm back and dug the blade deep into his chest. He almost instantly collapsed with large amounts of black blood beginning to collect on me. I fell through the hole into the second floor with the massive body of the orc on top of me. I pushed him and scurried into a corner.

I began shaking in shock of what I had just done. I killed someone, I can't go back from that, I murdered him. The shock quickly went away and all that was left was anger for the orcs. After all, they are murdering my kind.

All of a sudden there was a large crash and a huge fireball flew through the wall of my house destroying the front and back walls of my room. It was aimed at me, but I could feel it coming and I swiftly dodged out of the way. I walked over to the opening avoiding the fire. All that the orcs could see of me was the sharpness of my teeth, and my face scowling at them. The five orcs began to run towards the house. I jumped down on one with the blade pointing downward and it went through his skull. I pulled the blade out and slashed catching two more orcs in the swing. I watched as blood splattered out of their limp bodies as they fell to the ground.

The other two turned and started to charge my rear with weapons drawn. I turned and slashed one of their heads off, then I jumped and embedded the blade in the final orc's chest. I look at him nothing seeming to be too strange except a marking on his hand. He has been branded by a demon. Not just a demon but a Pit Fiend, some of the most powerful demons, just below the Dark One. I was covered in their blood my weapon and cloak stained.

Then it happened a large orc wielding a maul in one hand and a battle axe in the other began to command others to attack me, I had found their leader. He stood on top of what seemed to be a goblin made siege engine.

In the short time I had, I looked around. Farmers huts on fire, elves impaled on spears, some only heads, the darkness of night being illuminated by the fire the orcs brought. Catapults, Siege Engines, and other horrible goblin creations are being used by the orcs. Orcs, they are wearing very basic leather armor, that of barbarians, they have smoothly shaved heads, but something isn't right with that mark on their hand.

My anger, from seeing the bodies of the fallen and innocent elves, came out and I went into what I believed was a blood lust or feral form. I went berserk, I slashed and hacked my blade at the orcs, killing too many to count at this point. A little girl came up to me and I instantly broke out of the blood lust I was in.

"Please, help me!" she cried. "I need someone to help, please!" I heard a noise from behind me and I picked her up and ran. I pulled out my blade and ran holding it to block her.

"I'll keep you safe don't worry, I'm taking you to the nearest village," I told her, smiling as not to scare her anymore.

"But mommy!" She cried reaching out to one of the bodies on a spear.

"I'm sorry" I told her a single tear rolling down my face as I ran.

But then an orc managed to run faster than me and it attacked me. I slashed the blade at it and I missed. I then began to attack him full of rage, he fell quickly. In the time I wasn't protecting her an arrow from a nearby orc pierced her chest leaving a deep wound. At this point, she wouldn't be able to recover from it. The arrow went through her ribs and into her lungs where it would kill her painfully. She started gasping for air and spasming in my arms. Her body after minutes finally died.

I laid her body down on the nearest patch of grass and I looked at her still in complete shock. My tears began to clean her soot covered face. I got up with nothing but resentment for all orc kind but in my heart, I wanted nothing but peace. I stood up, blood splattered all over my face and chest with wounds on most parts of my body. I looked up my face in a scowl again, and I let out a battle cry, standing over the village looking down on all the hell that the orcs are bringing upon us.