Sons of Ironstorm - Book 1: Griffon's Rise

Prologue - The Utterance

                                    “And the Mighty, How They have Fallen!

                                    Though none did match their Strength,

                                    None were greater in Courage and Wisdom,

                                    And none overwhelmed their resolution,

                                    The Great Ones of Light passed before Us,

                                    Taken by uncaring Fate, and unrelenting Time.”

                                                - from Cephanon’s ‘Ruminations’, ch. 1

He groaned as he sagged against a shattered stone column, his strength nearly gone.  Behind him, the greatest city on the face of Ramnor lay in ruins with fires sweeping through her streets and her buildings reduced to heaps of rubble.  The sky overhead, once pristine and sapphire blue, was now gray with smoke and ash from the city’s dying gasps.  There, amongst the broken bones of the fatally wounded metropolis strode her conquerors, her destroyers and defilers; a black wave of destruction that had swept up from the south to overwhelm her rune-strengthened walls and obliterate her magically enhanced defenses.

Now the dark ones walked unmolested through the smoldering parks, striding haughtily down her rubble-strewn avenues, and stepping over shattered walls and ruptured fountains.  On they came, past the monument to Abrathias in the Doman Rolus, through the Thaltana Hebra and down the twin passageways of the Mer Kanthas Tor and on, into the center of the city.  They were giants of darkness, surrounded by their flock of demonic servants, death in their eyes and chaos and destruction, their meat and drink.

He felt a tear trickle down his weary cheek as he watched them come on, remembering the broken city’s glories, her magnificence before... Before the Darkness, before the coming of the Great Enemy.  Oh, the pain!  Jair Kalial the Beautiful was dead!

Breathing heavily, the battered survivor of the great and horrible death of Jair Kalial hefted his worn staff once more, using its length as a brace to push himself fully to his feet.  The crystalline globe that sat at its head, once blazing with the fire of Ri’im’s own fiery crown, was covered now with the dust and grime of Kalial’s death throes.  Try as he might, he couldn’t coax another whisper of power from it, or from his own broken body.

Heart heavy, he looked up from the lifeless crystal at his staff’s head to the brilliance that was Norak, the Gate of Farewell, its golden light undimmed by the relentless attack that had shattered Jair Kalial’s magical defenses and slaughtered her inhabitants.  Even now as he gazed into its light, pure and untainted by the Shadow of the Abyss, he could see the last of the refugees reach the other side, non-combatants caught in the titanic struggle between Good and Evil.  There, on blessed Rimnor would they find safety.  But deep in his heart he knew that safety would be fleeting unless he somehow closed Norak so the Great Enemy couldn’t again rip it open.

Summoning the last of his strength, he was about to go forward to do just that when he caught sight of a movement out of the corner of his eye.  Fearing attack, he turned as best he could to face it, holding the staff at the ready with trembling hands, the last of his once great might now spent.  Only to feel a wave of relief lend him a measure of strength as he found himself gazing upon the dusty and worn features of his oldest friend’s son.

“C’non!” he croaked, relief flooding through him in a wave of warmth.  “You’re still alive!”

The young man, not more than fourteen summers old, nodded slowly as he worked his way out of the rubble of the building he had been hiding in, one of the waystations before the stone ramp that ran up to Norak’s mouth.  His clothing, once fine and of good make, was torn and tattered, stained by the many trials he had faced since the fall of the city’s massive walls.

“Yes, Lord Te’fa,” the boy replied softly when he reached the broken man’s side, his face a mask of sooty weariness.  Deep in his dark, silver flecked eyes his sorrow and anguish were plain to see.

“But my family... they took them all!”  The young lad’s face fell and he stared at the ground, a battered and forlorn figure standing before Te’fa, the last Sa’anish lord and master of Jair Kalial, his clothing tattered and bloodstained with his own life, seeped from a multitude of cuts and scrapes on his body.

“They took them all,” he dully repeated.

Grimacing as he felt C’non’s pain emanate from the troubled lad, Te’fa stepped closer with the help of the staff to put his hand on the young boy’s shoulder.

“I know, my boy, I know,” he husked softly.  “But the gate to Rimnor still stands open.  You must flee through it while you can.”

C’non’s head snapped up as if it were on a string, his dark eyes suddenly hard as obsidian.

“No,”  He said with a voice made hoarse with smoke and emotion.  “I won’t flee Jair Kalial while my mother... my father... lay unburied.  I cannot dishonor them so.”  He looked away as tears filled his eyes and frogged his voice.

“You’ve been listening to the Elves again, haven’t you?” Te’fa asked with a gentle smile, understanding in his eyes.  “No matter; here, I will, . . .”

Without warning Te’fa was filled with a strange force, an overwhelming energy that washed away his fatigue and cleansed the doubt and frustration from his heart and mind in a flash of golden light, even as it stole his voice, causing it to trail away.  And, as the energy filled him to the very brim, he watched with astonished eyes as a great vision was opened up them.

Hearing the older man’s voice fade to silence, the young man looked up into his face.

“Lord Te’fa?” he asked out loud, a feeling of alarm chilling him as he found the great and wise leader’s eyes focused on something far in the distance.

As if brought back to the ruin that was Jair Kalial by young C’non’s voice, Te’fa shook himself, his eyes losing that far off look.  He blinked rapidly once, then twice before he looked down at the boy with renewed vigor.  Ignoring the pain of his broken ankle, Te’fa gently took C’non by the arm to begin leading him up the ramp towards Norak.

“I will let you stay in Jair Kalial, to care for your fallen parents, lad,” he began with a smile, eyes bright.  “But first there’s something we must do.  And we must do it so the Great Enemy won’t be able to cross over to the blessed realm of Rimnor, and spread shadow where only light now stands.”  He spoke quickly and quietly, the vision that now filled his mind also filling his heart with urgency.

Nodding vigorously as he caught the spirit that now surged out of the renewed man, the young boy looked attentively up at Te’fa, a half smile touching his cracked lips.

“Are we going to close the gate, Lord Te’fa?” he asked and Te’fa smiled in reply.

“Yes, lad, that we will, with my staff.”  Even as he spoke, a golden light began to glow deep within the staff’s crystalline globe, growing stronger with each step towards the stone arch and brilliant nimbus beneath that was Norak.

“But before we do that, there’s something else I need for you to do.  You must listen to me, C’non, and listen carefully.  For I am about to tell you something about the distant future, something that will forever change everything.  Rimnor, Ramnor, the entire universe!  So you must listen very, very carefully!”

*****