A thread of hope prologue, what do you think?
At last I decided to just put up the whole prologue of my upcoming book (A thread of hope.. Oh you guessed that already ? Well.. whatever!) and (of course) I want to know what you think of it... Its a pretty long read I guess.. Anyway, good luck! :-)
Prologue of «A thread of hope» Part 1.«The crystal tower»
A mild south east wind blew slowly throughout the charred town, and spread the macabre smell of death and ashes through the windows of the few houses left intact.
It was placed around the top of a scorched round hill, was about 2000 feet east, west, north and south, it was surrounded by a wooden palisade, and the top was surrounded by 20 feet tall reinforced granite walls.
The streets were literally soaked with blood, crushed coal lay spread on top, and to make matters worse, random body parts lay everywhere.
This left the road looking like a river of bloody and chunky meat soup, spiced with pepper.
The houses that were standing were literally falling apart, and all walls were charred black.
However there where two locations that stood out from the devastated town.
One, a humongous castle surrounded by granite walls, which stood on the top of the hill, in the center of the town.
The other a great stone tower, almost 20 feet in diameter at the foot and more than 100 feet tall.
This Tower was located 20 paces from the castle's outer wall, was made out of almost shiny, white stone, had a small paved plaza around it, a round platform which it was placed upon, one great iron door, and no holes, in the smooth stone walls, except at the top, where the tower suddenly changed into a giant sphere made out of massive crystal, with two balconies.
In one of the many rooms of the castle, the throne room to be exact, the young Mayor was talking
to one of his generals.
"Now, the part that I don't understand general, is how the heck did you manage to loose the entire
city guard against dark dwarfs one tenth of your numbers, and survive yourself?"
The mayor said suspiciously to the only other man in the room.
"I'm not the only survivor Sir, The Apprentice named Bayn survived too, and a few of the ones
nearest the oil barrels, in fact Bayn was the one who figured out how we could kill the Shadow Dwarfs."
The Mayor stared angrily at the general, he definately did not like being corrected.
"And just how did he do that?" He said angrily.
"M'ka Al irbit erk un andrum" The general said.
"Which means?" The mayor asked.
"Shadows only fear the light" The general said dramatically as he pointed at the shadow of his body.
"What's that supposed to mean?" The mayor asked angrily as he studied the general..
"Flame, they can't stand flame" The general answered calmly.
"What about steel?" The mayor asked, a troubled look on his face.
"Steel might cut them open, but the tissue grows together in a matter of seconds, which makes it useless in the long run."
"You still haven't answered the first and second of my questions general..."
"Bayn told us to dip our swords into the oil barrels, and when we had done that, he sparked them aflame.
This provided us with the perfect weapon against their flesh..
It slashed straight trough.
And when Bayn started lighting up circles of flame around their small groups, it turned from a bloodbath on our side, to a bloodbath on theirs, we could just shoot them down with fiery arrows.."
The general abruptly stopped talking and laughed..
"No sir, I forgot, there were NO oil barrels.. Unfortunately for you, they did not bring any..
Instead he and the rest of the human resistance are locked up and surrounded in the Tower of the Eagle."
"Then who are.."
The young mayor stopped as the air shimmered around what he had thought was one of his best generals, and the young general disappeared for a second, then reappeared as a hairy gray-skinned female shadow dwarf.
"I think you've guessed already SIR MAYOR.."
She said in a deep rasping voice.
"I'm your worst nightmare"
She whispered into his ear a blink of an eye before she wrenched his head off.
"Now Bayn, you're up next.."
She said quietly to herself.
She knew that the stupid unexperienced warlock was to be relieved of the burden of life promptly.
..................................
At the same time, in the middle of the hollow sphere at the top of the Tower of the Eagle, the apprentice named Bayn was talking to the Real general, named Kertain.
"Let me get this straight, apprentice, you knew that the bloody dwarfs were coming?"
Kertain asked Bayn angrily.
"Not dwarfs, sir, something much darker, fiercer, ten times more bloodthirsty.
Something lacking consideration of anyone else than themselves, Something more evil than even the worst of wolves.
No general..
These are Shadow Dwarfs.."
The young apprentice which was about 6,5 feet tall, had brownish blond hair cut short,
and had what was now called an "eye disability", but before had been known as "warlock's eyes".
His eyes were green when he was unaffected by emotions, blue when his mind was distant,
red when he was thinking hard, purple when he was angry, yellow when he was afraid, and orange when he was sad.
The colors where the same for everyone with the so-called disability but,
while some might have orange when they were sad, others could have purple or red.
So, only people who knew the person with the disability well could use it to the person's disadvantage.
However, this phenomenon only occurred in human warlocks, which made it inevitable,
even though they were the strongest wielders of nature, that they almost perished,
when the races clashed together in The war of endless agony.
"I've not heard of these so called "shadow dwarfs" apprentice.."
The general said, looking at Bayn as if he was a stain on his otherwise spotless armor.
"The shadow dwarfs appeared when the war between the dwarfs and humans were
tipping dangerously in the favor of the humans.
When two misguided dwarf warlocks mixed their own blood with the blood of
shadow-wolves, enchanted it with powdered root of a giant oak, and offered
it to the kings guard."
Bayn said, all the while wanting nothing more than yelling "Ignorant idiot" to the face of the general who was just that..
His eyes turning dangerously purple, he continued
"All though it was meant as one last desperate effort to turn the war into the dwarfs' favor,
it turned into exactly the opposite.
The kings guards' skin turned from, the normal suntanned color, into a dark gray.
And where their normal and facial hair had been, brown, red or blond before.
It was as black as a raven's feather."
Bayn paused, took a very deep breath, closed his eyes and tried to remember exactly
what Griandares had said about the Shadow dwarfs before he spoke again.
"To make matters worse, oh so much worse, their eyes turned to a glowing red,
and they turned against the race they had once been a part of,
killed their own king, and cut a path through both armies, without loosing a single one of their number, the only thing the remaining normal dwarfs could do, was resign, and flee to their former homes.
The element from which they were made, the earth, so they fled into the mountains.
The remaining humans, fled back to what is now called the plains of the world,
To a country twice the size of these time's so called empire.
And hoped to never encounter the shadow dwarfs again.."
He paused again, took a deep breath, and sent a glare spiced with despise, against the general, who now had the courage to tap his foot, obviously unaffected and bored by his tale so far.
"Of course, as many other times in history, hope was betrayed when the shadow dwarfs reappeared and raided a large town in the outskirts of the Nation, that was called, "The city of fire", simply because one of their many specialties was to light their swords on fire when they were fighting a foe stronger in numbers than themselves.
However, the darkness of the shadow-dwarfs skin together with the darkest of nights,
provided shelter from the watchful eyes of the town's sentries, and when they sneaked
up to the town gates, killed the guards and ravaged the town..
The defenders thought nothing would work on them, until they in one last effort lit their swords on fire, and ran together into the center of the town, where they to their amazement managed to hold the shadow dwarves off, and after one last bloody skirmish, the dwarves turned their tails and fled."
Bayn paused yet another time, and since he was starting to get enthusiastic now that
the tapping had stopped, his eyes were turning blue as he thought of how to continue his
terribly true story.
"Unfortunately, the word that fire bit through their flesh could not be spread quickly enough,
and a number of towns were completely devastated before the empire could assemble an army,
and locate the shadow dwarfs' headquarters.However, when they to their own amazement found that they had settled inside their nation's border, they gathered the entire force of all towns and cities in the country, and marched against the shadow dwarfs' puny host."
He paused dramatically, and drew his breath silently to prolong the pause, and strengthen the feeling that the worst was yet to come.
"This, should prove to be a fatal mistake..
When they reached the location where the headquarters' was supposed to be,
they saw nothing, absolutely no sign that there had EVER been a camp of some sort there..
There was only one conclusion available..
Their scouts and spies, had double crossed them..."
Bayn took yet another pause, and studied the general's face with satisfaction,
as he realized that the general's otherwise stony look was wavering..
"The worst has yet to come..." He thought as he smiled broadly.
"This was not a regular betrayal like in the stories however, where the enemies jumped out in ambush and the good men still won.
No, this was endlessly much worse, when they retraced their path, everything looked normal,
all towns and small cities left intact, despite the fact that they had been almost unprotected for a matter of weeks.
The brighter part of the army already thought that this was too unsavage a way for the shadow dwarfs to act, so they prepared themselves for the worst, and headed for the capital."
Bayn paused yet again, and was satisfied to see the general obviously lost in thought, hopefully inspired by the tale he was telling.
He drew his breath and continued.
"But there was nothing in the entire world that existed then, or now, that could have prepared them from the sight that met their eyes when they finally reached it.
The city had been ruined inside out, the walls were overturned, the castle lay in ruins, all
houses of wood either in ruins, or still burning, the Palace plundered and devastated, the old men, old women and young boys brutally murdered, and the women and young girls raped and
tortured.
And the worst, a shadow dwarf host, a lot less puny than expected went laughing about the city
and were ravaging what was left to be ravaged, killing the one's who were left to be killed,
and raping the one's who were left to be raped."
Bayn paused, and was pleased to find that the otherwise so stone-faced general, was actually staring intently into the wall.
"A staring face, is the face of a fool, general. I'm glad you finally show your true person."
Bayn thought, before he continued telling the tale, that made stone-faced men mope.
"Although the human host, would have crushed the one the Shadow Dwarfs had, in a matter of hours, it was not meant to be.
The shock had brought up a deeply buried matter of importance, that was to be the kings death.
The shock of seeing their, lovers, wives, and families either raped or slaughtered, brought up the matter of why one person should be able to control the entire force of the country.”
Bayn paused, sat down on the crystal bench before he continued.
“So the host split up in two, those for the king, and those against him.
If it had been split in half, most likely no one would dare to actually start the attack,
but the ones against the king, outnumbered the others three to one, so they charged, immediately after they had assembled their forces.
It was a bloodbath, and since the humans were in the middle of a fierce battle, no one took notice of the escaping shadow dwarfs.
In the end, more and more humans that were for the king, changed sides by the second, so the rest of them surrendered, and handed over the king, that was decapitated by the oppositions leader, almost at once.”
Bayn paused, and made a mental note to remember how painful sitting on the bench actually was.
“The shadow dwarfs were forgotten and an committee was made and they decided, that the country should be controlled by the mayors of the cities, that should be elected by the people living in the cities.
There should also be a supreme council of senators, chosen from among the mayors, by the mayors.
When this was finally decided, the shadow dwarfs had re-armed and prepared themselves to perform yet another devastating attack against the human race, when the new city guard of "The City of Fire"
caught them in ambush, and thought they killed every last one of their terrifying race."
Bayn finished, and as the general made as if to speak, he raised his hand.
He had one last thing to say before, allowing foolish questions from the general.
"Unfortunately from what we've seen so far today, the so called "master mercenary dwarfs"
that have popped up everywhere these last few years are indeed shadow dwarfs, and,
the law the committee of Democracy made, to prevent invasions of the country from being absolutely devastating, may prove to help invasions do just that.
I fear that if the dwarves have not done so already, they'll invade the rest of our weak 'empire'."
The general had no idea of the situation they were in, no idea at all.
Bayn recited the poem out of Gil'Yar's “Book of prophecy.” his as deep as he was able to make it.
“When the shadow reaches the tower of crystal,
The apprentice must go to the woods of thistle.
And seek help from the hidden races.
Allthough they are hidden in two different places.
The shadow may be a threat, but its just one of many.
Of humans in the end, there might not be any.
The seeker of doom is always around.
Doom for the humans, for him there's the crown
One thread there is, one last strand of hope.
For the world to avoid withering and going up in smoke.
The three true races, must ally as one.
Or else whats left of hope will truly be gone.
The apprentice and a son of the mountains will meet.
The duty of helping lies at their feet.
So do not give up, no matter what, you must cope.
Remember, there's still one last thread of hope.
”
(The poem was of course written in a much more encrypted form of speech, and on top of that it was written in Dwarfish, so this was the easiest way for him to recite it.).
The End Prologue Part 1 of ???
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Remember to tell me what you think.. :-)
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