Deathless

Deathless Chapter Nineteen: Shadow

Chapter Nineteen: Shadow

The Golden Keep stood before the host as they approached it, the elite sorcerer guard of the Mage King hurling fireballs and bringing down sheets of lighting upon them, trying to quell their advance as the attackers drew nearer and nearer to the keep.

A full seven hundred years of history, from 478 2E, the Year of Mages, when a company of mages sailing from Wymar, the Kingdom of Dragons across the world, had come to settle in Serenar, stood before the besiegers as they approached.

They had raised the Golden Keep and the rest of the great city of Morsar from the ground, and had turned into a city of learning, a city of wonder.

But like all things, it must come to an end. For in the year 1038 2E, the army of Arseph the Mageslayer marched through the cobbled streets of Morsar that were stained with blood. Using explosives seized from the Alchemists of the Inferus Marshes, who were akin to the Mages, they had brought down the tempered iron gates of the Golden Keep, that were strengthened by centuries’ worth of wards and protective spells, and spilled into the keep’s courtyard.

The royal sorcerers had fallen beneath our swords like cattle during a drought. One by one, the elite sorcerers of the Mages, the remnants of the Everthorn Mages, who had had their entire vanguard slain on the shores of the Groster Lake, had fallen.

And then our forces had stormed the keep, setting fire to the golden tapestry depicting the mages of old, hailing from Wymar, the Kingdom of Dragons, now decimated and destroyed by forces unknown.

We found the throne room behind the golden doors at the end of the entrance hallway. Some had tried to resist, but their spells were nothing against the sheer strength of the Imperial Army. The doors were thrust open, and the final battle of the Mage Wars had commenced.

For the Mage King was not going down without a fight. Spell and sword had clashed in a mighty duel that would surely be sung of for generations to come. Lightning had pierced armour and blade had pierced flesh. The stones of the Aranea Hall had been stained with blood of magic.

And at last, the battle ended when Arseph the Mageslayer threw down the body of the Mage King Alvarin, and all his vassals and knights, those who were still alive, that is, had thrown down their staves at our feet, quaking at the feet of the great emperor.

-Excerpt from The Battle of Morsar, by Haren, royal scribe of Arseph the Mageslayer

The sky above the Cleaver is a startlingly clear blue as the makeshift excuse for a seafaring vessel approaches Arlenn’s Point. Five strips of wood extend in the horizon, from the green and white strip of land that emerges in the distance. They are unmarked. No banner rises in the west. The harbour flies no flag. The harbour is common ground, for rebels, northerners, and pirates alike.

The harbour, named Sizgodil Town, built in the shadow of the great spire of stone alongside it, casting its shadow upon the town in the morning hours.

Sizgodil Town was an archaic, chaotic town with no law enforcement having any hold upon the town. The only things that kept one from committing any crime in this town were the gods. For the town was built in the aftermath of the Pirate Uprising, when trade went bad, and the Arlenian Trade Crisis had struck.

It was a haven for pirates and illegal traders alike to sell their charges: slaves, forbidden goods, and exports. 

For the program that Emperor Arseph the Mageslayer had began to solve the trade crisis involved the Empire keeping a tighter hold on the black market traders shipping goods to and from the neighbouring empires. The Sentinels had formed a separate division specially for hunting and taking down these black market traders. This was why, in the territory of the rebels, where Ashmur’s hold on the black market was lax, black market traders were abundant, and entire settlements like Sizgodil Town wherein illegal imports were sold were possible.