Sons of Ironstorm - Book 4: Griffon's Stand

One Vision Fulfilled

The clearing was exactly as it was in the vision: a slight thinning in the Easterling's verdant and unhealthy wall of swamp life. There, the slight depression he would continue to deepen with his hands not but three paces from where he stood. And there, a pace beyond, the stone he would sit up on its end to carve ancient and powerful symbols into its weathered face, an arm length long, a forearm wide and a good hand span deep. Naked in his hand, the Sword of Aesthegon continued its strange glowing as Ciradaan took stock of the clearing, letting the gateway collapse behind him now that he truly was here in the now of Reality, not the future of his vision.

'Well,' he silently mused after his brief inspection, 'best be to it. We've delayed long enough already.' He sheathed the Sword of Aesthegon to step to the depression, kneel and begin digging. 'I only hope Najthin was right and this is the key to opening the barrier between Shawn and Patrik and their Weapons of Power. Or we are truly lost!'

A few shades of quick work and the depression was as deep as it had been in his vision. Nodding in satisfaction, Ciradaan went to the stone and took hold of it with muddy hands, bending his back in the effort to pull it into place. While he still felt drained after being a-bed so long with his injury, resolution strengthened his limbs and he managed to wrest it out of the ground and began dragging it.

After a moment of hard work it was where his vision demanded it to be, one flat surface facing the depression and its long edge perpendicular to the marshy ground. That done, Ciradaan cleaned his hands as best as he could then redrew the Sword of Aesthegon, using its unnaturally sharp tip to carefully incise the symbols he had seen in his vision into the stone's rough face.

Because of the symbols' complexity and his care to avoid cutting himself on his own sword's edge, it took nearly a full turn of the glass majora to complete the symbols in their entirety. By that time, the Aquilan was drenched in perspiration, his skin stinging from multiple insect bites, the swamp's fetid touch pressing his damp clothes in on him.

Despite that, Ciradaan grimly pushed on. He couldn't afford to flag now, not with the ritualistic symbols half completed. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the last sa'anish rune was etched into the stone. Sheathing his sword, the tired and worn elf knelt once again beside the pool. There he extended his arm and stiffened his finger to draw the remaining symbols in the soft clay of the depression's bottom. 

Thinking the task would be easier with the change in medium, the Aquilan discovered with dismay that, in the heat and moisture, the clay was unable to hold a shape quickly drawn. Again he was forced to great care and attention to make sure his firm strokes remained etched into the depression's bottom long enough to do what they were supposed to.

By the time the final symbol was done, Ciradaan was exhausted and aching from the effort, the swamp's heat doing its part to sap what was remaining of his strength and will. Yet complete it he did and, with a groan, he pushed himself back to his feet to slowly draw the Sword of Aesthegon before stepping back to the stone, placed firmly in its shallow trench.

According to the vision, he had thrust his sword firmly through the center rune, a sinuous shape that looked like a whirlpool, for lack of a better description. He identified the symbol and stepped close, readying the sword. There he paused to take a quick look around. 

Ciradaan almost couldn't believe he managed to complete the runic etching without some sort of interference, whether it be from the swamp's copious wildlife or some dark soldier bent on preventing him from thwarting its master's insidious plan. That seemed to be the pattern of the Norak Utterance's unfolding, so clearly illustrated in how its key players discovered their parts to perform.

The Wielder of the Star Sword, Shawn Ironstorm, seemed a perfect example of this strange fate. Gifted with power overwhelming and an undeniable destiny, how often had the young human found himself walking the line between life and death, if death didn't have him wholly in its grip, after an unexpected encounter with one of the Deceiver's many agents.