Sons of Ironstorm - Book 1: Griffon's Rise

Chapter 2 - Storm Wolves

                                   “And it came to pass that the Creator looked down,

                                    And did see the Storm Wolves lurking,

                                    Their baleful gaze illuminating the Desolation.

                                    Among the Desolation still lurked Evil, most foul,

                                    And so His breath did caress the soils of Ramnor,

                                    And new Peoples did spring forth,

                                    To give Battle to that Evil, to Destroy it!”

                                                - from the Norak Utterance, First Stanza

It was a clear, spring day on the Plains of Aramas, a vast region of rolling hills, oceans of swaying grasses and low shrubs and rushing rivers that surged through deep cut river valleys.  The Aramas dominated the western marches of Reutha, the largest continent in Ramnor’s northern hemisphere; a plain called by many people the Sea of Green.  Here many living things thrived in the continental climate, both on the ground and in the air, the least of them not being Men, which made the great plain their home.

With morning already well by and Ri’im climbing to his accustomed noonday seat high in the sky, a soft breeze blew out of the west to caress the long grasses that grew there.  Each gust and puff sent the thick stuff rippling like waves on a sea of fresh green, a lazy dance of motion and sound both hypnotic and soothing.  Here and there small clusters of trees swayed melodically in that strengthening wind, dancing with the breeze rushing through their branches.  And high over head small white clouds scudded across a deep blue sky and Rimnor, the Silver Sister, hung low in the west, a beautiful green and blue, cloud-wreathed crescent just above the horizon.

Denizens of the great sea of grass, small animals rustling through the thick stuff they called home and prairie birds winging through the heavens, marked by their soft and echoing cries over the plain, both rejoiced in the return of spring to the Aramas.  For winter laid hard upon the grassy knolls and gentle swells of the Reuthan heartland and every creature, going either a-wing, on four legs or on two, welcomed the renewed warmth that spring returned to the land.  With the last frosts of a clinging winter but only a tenday distant, the chill of winter was still fresh in every memory.

Unheeding of that cold, as it was the heat of summer when it descended onto the Aramas was a massive spire of stone that jutted from the earth near the very center of the great plain.  It was a naked dragon’s tooth of earthen bone thrust unabashedly into the sky, weathered and worn by generations of storms.  It’s raw form clawed a full twenty lengths into the heavens, challenging both the force of gravity which held it firmly to the ground, and the elements which sought to sweep it away with their tumult.  Today it stood silent, ignoring the breeze that whistled about its worn feet, glowering at the sun as he climbed in the west.

All around those weathered feet, as far as one could see, the rolling hills of the west plains extended, painted new green by the brush of Nature wielded by Iathomer, the Spirit of Spring, to mark the coming of the new season.  High in the sky’s sapphire vaults, hunting birds hung almost motionless in the distance, held aloft by the strengthening westerly wind as their sharp eyes scanned the ground far below for an unwary mouse or vole, seeking to satisfy a long winter’s hunger on the new green of the plain.  Their wings were silent on the spring breeze as they effortlessly rode the thermals rising more strongly now, with the sun nearing its perihelion.