Sons of Ironstorm - Book 4: Griffon's Stand

Chapter 23: Echoes of a Glorious Past

"From the very beginning, from the advent of the Exile

Did the fallen Heroes of Rimnor keep a record of their travels.

Here they will scribe each battle, each war they fought.

Here they will record each enemy defeated, each enemy to defeat them.

Here they will etch each thing they learn to give them strength and power.

All that is and all that was will be recorded within.

Pay heed and know who these elves are and were."

- from the Kata Na'Sylvinor, preface to the first book   

First came that familiar disorientation that so plagued him during their flight through the desert to the Kala'finae refuge: the disconnect from Reality, his physical vision blurring, heart racing. Then:

"Like a swarm of locusts they came, black armored stormtroopers, running up the beach from their destroyed vessels as if their very lives depended on their haste. And just as quickly they died, ripped apart by missiles of light launched from grim elvish warriors holding their positions on the beach high ground.

Almost immediately Patrik recognized the tableaux as it rapidly unfolded before his astonished eyes. It was the Kaal Eran assault on Earthforge, an attack he had witnessed in one of his first visions. Even as the battle lines began to form in patterns he had seen before, he could feel the presence of the Earth Sword nearby, high up on a south-facing balcony carved into the volcano's rocky flesh. And, wielding it, its first Wielder, a sa'anish high lord.

Reluctantly Patrik drew back from that presence. He had already communed with the first Wielder of the Earth, gaining valuable knowledge from him. Besides, being a sa'anish lord, he'd have little knowledge of the lore and battle magic the elves were now using with great effect against the demonic onslaught.

No, if he was to gain the information he needed to restore the elves to their former glory, he would have to find a powerful source of ancient elvish lore. Almost by themselves, his attention swung off the front lines to the lone figure sitting a-horse several paces back, his silver armor gleaming in the failing light as he stood in the stirrups to urge his warriors onward from the back of his mount.

It was Prince Aelvar, eldest of the elvish High King, Aesthegon, and commander of the greatest host the elves had ever assembled. If any elf on this particular battlefield would have a command of ancient elvish lore, it would be this powerful prince of the most ancient of elvish Houses."

Immersed as he was in the vision, Patrik nevertheless felt himself frown. The visions the Earth gave him educated and informed through observation, memories she herself had made as she experienced the events first hand. They weren't interactive to the point that he gained the power to interrogate figures from the past. Or were they? Could he somehow focus his point of view to see what he had missed? To espy something that would give him access to the lost knowledge of the ancient elves? Returning his full attention to the vision, he allowed it to swallow him up again.

"Aelvar shifted in the saddle, his eyes narrowed behind the slit in his helmet visor. Then, without warning, he dipped a gauntleted hand into a bulging saddlebag.

<<By the blood of my forefathers,>> he rumbled, his voice Lithosin deep with timbre. <<The sky yonder splits with the advent of evil.>> The gauntleted hand drew out a massive book, which he laid across his lap.