Roots - Prologue

Prologue: The Sins of Our Forefathers


The blood trickled down the length of my blade, warming my bare hand strained white with the force in which I gripped my sword. I pulled it out of the dead kraal with a slurp and leapt beneath a swinging ax, the whistling blade of it slicing the ends of my long hair. I feinted to the side and swept the heaping troll from its feet, driving my sword through the base of the neck. The crack resounded loudly across the fields, the sound carried on the wind, and echoed back to me from the mountain face. The legion below looked up at me.
Thousands of black beady eyes squinting to see scowled at me, enraged. I looked back to my men, their faces grim, and I couldn’t blame them. The realm of men had never faced such a fearsome foe before. I looked down at my bloodied armor, slick with the black ooze of the demon spawn’s lifeblood. I slung it from my blade then and in a flash stuck it through the skull of my enemy sprawled in the grass below.
“Under the eye of my elders, their spirits will watch over us and protect us in battle! I promise this in my native tongue.” I paused and let the words of the elves come to me. “Lein denari.”
I promise.
And with that, I threw my sword high, flinging the corpse below to the army of evil and reared my head back; roaring the cry of death at my enemies; and bellowed as I charged down the cliff.
* * *
Across the land, past the forests of Vardentury, the plains and hills of Urugard, and the vast oceans of the Old Country, swept miles away from the deserts of Fehren, and nestled tightly between the Ancient Woods and the country of men: Hromen; laid the wife to the soldier above. She, in her death throes as the new born cried nearby to clear his lungs, blessed the babe in the old language of the elves and cried for him.
“Forgive me, my son, as my heart fails not only me but you as well.” She wept softly and looked at him with failing sight, absorbing the beauty of her child. She took him in her arms one last time and hugged him tightly. “He will be known as Aldon Sungblade of the Ninth Order.” She mouthed I love you to him unable to speak; and passed, her soft eyes staring at him even through the veil of death with insurmountable love. Her fair skin paled and her golden locks fell limply upon her slender curves. The priests took the newborns to the nursery to be bathed and clothed in time for the procession, their small hands pulled away from hers.
Her beauty remained untouched by death as she was placed ceremoniously in her stone tomb. The mythril face adorned with ancient runes and wards to protect from spirits, carried slowly by the noble guards who had protected her.
All around the funeral procession stood her people, gathered to mourn the passing of their passionate lady whom all loved. Her heart was open to any line of life and brought a sense of unity to the many races of Betwixt. They gathered in mass, hundreds of them to pay respects.
Black and white adorned the men and women about the ceremony, a quiet chant rising in the many voices and languages in a slow crescendo, slowly building and building as the coffin reached closer to the great tomb. The rising drone grew powerful and intense as the guards stopped on either side of the stone grave, chiseled and carved masterfully with not the smallest imperfection to be seen. The dwarves’ work was admired but wished for another purpose.
The centaurs waved their long arms in the air forming smoke rings and shimmering shapes from them. They floated to the coffin and branded into the wood, a circle eclipsing the corners of a triangle turned sheen blue. The dwarves bowed and placed their most luxurious gems upon the shapes. The humans were next followed by the ents, sprites, fairies, and lastly the halves.
The latter stood from their bow, stretching to their full height well over the others’ heads aside from the ents, and stared down at the engraved coffin adorned with treasures and good fortune. Their gray eyes shone in the light and their pale skin shimmered like the surface of water. The long-fingered, thin hands of these wise people were laid flat against the smooth wood in silence.
To the amazement of all other races, the Halves being perhaps the most ancient, the wood rippled like the smooth surface of a glassy lake perturbed by a small pebble. It waved as such for a moment longer before glowing pale like the noon sun. The halves removed their hands then and bowed before backing away to the line.
The coffin continued to glow and ripple like liquid fire until the guards heaved it up again, whence the light was extinguished; revealing a coffin made of the finest stone. It remained just as light as oak yet strong as the West Mountains. The whole of it was an emerald and seemed to be endlessly deep, the color was so saturated. The stone was smooth and naturally polished like glass. All the items placed upon it were embedded in the face forever presented.
The guards then, lowered the great artifact into the grave as the chant climaxed, flowing across the procession and filling the valley with song.
The young babe looked on, eyes a luminescent green, unknowing what was around him as his mother was laid to rest, his father at war. The babe yawned and drifted off to sleep as he was carried from the tomb’s side as the emerald coffin was laid into place, the indestructible front looking out from the mountain so she could eternally watch her son grow and live the life she would not be a part of.
* * *
I felt something stir deep within me as the battle warred on. The goblins were retreating and the kraal all but destroyed. The last of the trolls were swarmed and pinpointed by our catapults and javelins, but my victory did not taste so. It was not the bitter-sweetness of acknowledging our dead among the fallen, nor the sourness of knowing it wasn’t over yet, but something much greater. I finished my foe and fled up the cliff where I had begun the battle.
I stooped over onto one knee and placed my sword in one hand, the other on the ground as I laid my ear to the earth.
Tragedy.
Devastated, I stumbled to my feet and sucked in the cool air as my head whirled. The ground trembled beneath me and the sky blackened, lightning cracking the sky with great flashes and thundering booms echoing across the battlefield. I roared indefinitely and held it for what seemed like decades. The note was clear and powerful, the storm responding in kind as the winds swept all others to the ground and struck with bolts of purple lightning from above. Explosions erupted all about me as my pain manifested itself in nature and destroyed all. My heart was already gone, my very being vanished as the lightning shattered the earth and split the night.