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Not perfect....only a rough draft....

Those Less Fortunate:

When Nora awakened from a long and unexpected slumber, she sat up, wincing as the pain in her right flank struck home, attacked her with a quick jolt of memory and she quickly came to her senses, looking about her for some clue as to where she might have been. It was dark in the cavernous room when she realized that Brothul must have carried her here after the battle at the Temple of Gartherz, beyond the Legion’s Castle walls. She hadn’t expected it to be so bad…it hadn’t been a battle…. It had been an onslaught.
She heard strange susurrations permeating the room, seeping through the walls. She sat up in the massive bed, much too large for her, and looked around slowly. The room was bathed in hazy and…almost thick incandescence which she knew the warm walls created of their own powers, making her feel as if she’d need to swim through it as she got up from the warm bed. Trust, she didn’t want to get up…she had to get up. Had to. She swung her feet over the edge of the huge bed and took a deep breath. She was just beginning to grasp the enormity of Brothul’s room, as she had to crane her neck all of the way back in order to see the ceiling. Well, for Fate’s sake, he was an Inple. She readied herself, grabbed her sore right flank and jumped…falling fifteen feet before she landed in a crouch. With a grunt of pain she got to her feet and turned, realizing that if she’d wished, she could have walked under the giant’s bed. So large…and so graceful he was.
She walked over to one of the walls and watched them pulsate with their own light and she whispered, “I’d wished I could standout as you do…glow like you. But…me, I’m still a humble girl, right….simply pulled into a war effort way beyond my time…and far beyond my ability to affect…”
Behind her, a soft yet eloquent voice spoke out in a throaty moan, “Gives new meaning to the saying ‘talking to walls’.”
Nora turned, her long crimson and brown hair falling around her as she jumped with a pip… She’d startled rather easily, always had.
“Quinn,” she croaked, almost choking, “you…why, you’re here…”
“Of course I am….” The man said from the shadows, “I always was…”
“Quinn, I am…so…afraid of what I may have caused…what I have done. What have I done…?” She asked, herself more than him.
Nora brought her hands to her breasts and pushed her fingers between her cleavage and dropped her head. She’d taken charge, hadn’t she, in a fiery mood for vengeance and had charged into battle, a host of forest and mystical creatures in-tow and had assaulted Ch’Rahkx’s castle….and they’d been slaughtered…almost all of them.
She could remember the battle, the smell of flames, the thick and poignant scent of animal flesh, burning beneath tides and tides of searing magma. So much flesh cauterized as wounds were inflicted by the flaming swords of the Nach’Chra, so many lives extinguished as if embers burning…lingering to their lives as man often had to, trying their bests to breathe…to continue on. Embers burning in campfires, only to be snuffed out when they finally gather hope. That’s what they’d said, that Nora, a simple girl, had been their hope. So powerful, so profound. Hope of which the likes they’d never had. It was a…cliché and old assumption that, simply because you’re chosen to perform a great task…simply because they all say it so, that you can do it. And Nora…well, hell, Nora couldn’t. And all of the bodies burned and lost in front of the keep and temple were evidence enough.
All of them were signs…each and every last one.
They’d charged fast and silent until the last moment. An army of rebels. Humans, Inples, Treants, Elves and even the Yatvhis attacked…but the Dark Legion had been ready with flames of Hell. Each of them, the dreaded Nach’Chra had carried a flaming sword. The beasts of Hell, the wraiths, and ravaged souls controlled by Ch’Rahkx’s Necromancers, the Etuls, were the Nach’Chra. Beasts once human, shrouded in armor created of Dark Magique. Only allowed to live on in pain, cursed to kill their kind. Each of them carried a flaming sword and knew well enough how to wield the evil contraption.
And the cauldrons along the battlements, standing upon parabolic holsters set between the crenellations, held tight with roping by bewitched Inples, were released and mamga flowed along the walls and took many lives…many. The assault was almost completely in vain. Almost…as Nora had found her strength, had released the Holy and Celestial powers, which she’d been promised. Yet, upon using them to save the lives of four, she’d taken a knee, stricken with a deep pain in her right side. She’d reached her hand down and she tensed as pain coursed through her and a warm liquid coated her palm.… She knew it was blood, she just knew it. She looked around to her right as a figure walked around her…she looked up toward its face…only to see that Unter….her own love, had stabbed her in order to stop her from taking on the Dark Legion.
He spat in her face and screamed at her, whipping his finger back toward the castle walls, “Do you see, do you see what you’ve done?! We were better off with our subservient existence. We’re simple country plebian and that’s what we should stay. We’re better off at home, in front of our fireplaces, reading to our children! Not here, not rising against an enemy that we can not defeat! But you, you let that damned Yulva Larnya fill your simple head with all of this ‘profound’ bullshit about taking the world back! You’re too simple, that’s what you are, too plain to save the world. You just can’t do it. I’d rather be a farmer for the Legion…. I’d rather be a slave, than to be deep with the whyrms and grubs and gone, buried on the edge of the Human Territories.”
“We’re not meant to rise against!” Unter had screamed, spittle causing his bruised lips to glisten…and it made his snarl appear even more forbidding. “Not...meant to…” he chided…and from behind, Fallun had severed his head with the quick slash of a sword.
Then, the retreat had began.
It had been swift. Even the attack (slaughter) itself had lasted longer. And as those still able to flee did so, Nora found herself holding….cradling…crying over the head of her love who’d tried to kill her. Then, the head was plucked away from her by just a thumb and forefinger. And as she fainted, Brothul picked her up in one hand and carried her off.
Now, she looked up, eyes glazed over with fresh tears and stared toward the shadows, looking for Quinn’s silhouette.
“You, Nora….were not the one….”
Nora…dropped to her knees and stared at the palms of her hands. She looked up as the tall, white haired angel stepped forth. “That’s not fair…it’s not…right….” She choked up on a powerful sob and fainted, her forehead smacking against the hard stone floor.

Chapter One

Nora awakened in pain for the second time in half an hour and stared into the clear, pupil-less eyes of Quinn. His feminine and stunning face, clear of brow or any inclination of masculine stubble, tanned beautifully, sturdy and high cheek boned with a slightly pointed nose and soft jaw line, was only inches from hers. “You, Nora, are not the one which Fate wished to take charge. Thus, it was not time for the rebellion.”
“But…I used the powers…”
“Of your own accord. It was not because of the prophecy. The prophecy may be falsified. The message was received wrongly, in error. The prophet is gone…he was of the Legion. You, Nora, are an anomaly.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning: You were not supposed to lead the armies into the battle. You were not supposed to unleash the power of the Celestials. And because you did so, of your own wants and needs, you are an anomaly. Yulva Larnya is sorry that she pulled you into this and says that you can go home whenever you wish… But for now, she will ask you to go into hiding…”
Quinn was the voice of Yulva Larnya, the Queen and Goddess of Gavelhan.
“Sorry!? That’s all she is, is sorry? I lost my love and almost my entire life, figuratively and literally and all that she can say is ‘sorry, pack it up and move out’?”
Quinn regarded her solemnly but did not speak. He was an Angel of Fate and Yulva, especially, and was damn near void of human emotion. Sometimes, Nora pitied him.
Now, he pitied her.
“This is not fair! How can a mistake like this have been made?”
“That, is only because of Ch’Rahkx’s influence. In fact, the pact between him and Yulva Larnya is that he can not attack us unless we attacked him, seeing as he already controls over eighty percent of the human and elf population. In that regard, it is believed that he falsified the prophecy in order to make us attack. Now, Yulva thinks that he will strike a blow directly against her…and without her, the world is his to do with as he sees fit-”
“-and…” Nora pushed.
“-and it is believed that because you did, in fact, lead the army, that we will not have a chance to ready a defensive position, nor will we be able to see if we can really find the one who was prophesized about. He will send the Nach’Chra for you…and finish what your dear Unter started…”
“Dear….dear? Is that human sarcasm, silly human sarcasm! Or…is that an attempt at the exploitation of the irony of my situation! Because I know the irony of this quite well! I understand the irony of all of this quite well, I assure you! So well that it hurts! I don’t need you to show me…and I don’t wish for you to be here any longer!!”
Quinn blinked and looked upon Nora rather somberly. “That is not how I intended to portray my message to you. And as I have done so, I wish to ask for your true forgiveness of my insolence.”
Confused and flustered, Nora squinted and furled her brow. “Well….o-okay then… Not so dramatic.”
They were silent. Their gazes locked.
The only sound was the soft whistle of the wind brushing through the nulix lace hanging from the ceiling at the head of the cave. Nora finally broke the monotonous, disquieting lack of sound when she asked, “So, what happens now…?”
“I have solicited the protection of the Inple… He will take you to the Last Elvaic Stand and you will be protected there. It is a place that few can find and even less can travel unhindered. He will take you there and you will be safe as Ch’Rahkx’s minions can not find it without the aid of others…and even then, the Dark Elves within the towering trees will make quick work of them. The Nach’Chra are immortal, naught…”
“Fine…but I won’t like it….”
“I am happy that you do not protest… You should make haste. Brothul has gathered provisions for you and waypoints have been set up. A harbinger has been set up in each place and will await your arrival. Yulva bless you, and Fate’s speed….”
With that….Quinn was gone. Nora was alone.
Nora was…alone.

When Nora finally walked out of the cave, the lights stung her eyes and she squinted and shied back from the brilliance of the hazy radiance falling through the leaves of the gulbak oak trees. The lights feel upon her, caressing her and animating a shadow behind her, bringing the darkness to a state of borrowed life. She yelled loudly and the leg next to her, the same size as the massive tree trunks, turned, and a foot almost collided with her. But, she took a quickened step back and giggled as the Inple, Brothul, kneeled down near her and still, his knee was above her head. He held his massive, scarred hand down toward her and she stepped upon it, using his calloused thumb as a hold. She walked into his palm and he pulled her upwards.
A massive shadows blotted out the sunlight as Brothul got to his feet, hovering his hand above Nora as he raised to his feet and brushed away tree branches and limbs with the back of his hand, cracking some of them. He finally pulled her above the treetops and she giggled once again as she covered her head out of reflex. He peered in-between his hands with one massive eye and she could tell that a smile had washed over his soft features as he was so large, that she could hear his skin flex and tighten. He spoke in a whisper as he removed his hand from over her and asked her, “Is the pretty human lady with the shining stool thing going to protect you?”
“Yes, Brothul, she is going to protect us…”
Whispering again, but speaking as loud….perhaps even louder than Nora, Brothul quipped, “Yes, protection is a must or else, you turn to dust…”
She’d loved his little rhyming jokes.
“Yes, Brothul, indeed, you will… And if you turn to dust-”
“-be swept away, you must…” he smiled again, but never laughed…always smiled, but never laughed.
The first and last time her laughed in Nora’s presence, he’d almost killed her.
Brothul was, as all Inples are, huge, and towered over most of the trees in the world. But for creatures so massive, they were always gentle and loving. They were only forceful or angry when they were in battle or protecting those which they loved. And one thing about Inples is: regardless of how gentle they can be, they are stubborn and will only protect those that they really love. Gentle and cautious. Kindness can be misleading. It can appear to be weakness. So, they only reveal their gentleness to those which they can trust with the truth of it. But an Inples love can grow within them and be so powerful and persistent, that it can seem as if their entire grandiose frames were filled with it. If that could be so. As love was not a tangible object or thing.
But in knowing Brothul, Nora begged to differ.
In order to hug Brothul, as she always did, Nora held out her arms and Brothul pulled her to his calm, handsome face, and she hugged his nose with all of her little human strength. Brothul pulled Nora around to his shoulder in order to place her near his ear so that they could talk as they traveled. Nora was so high up that she could not hear the Inple’s footfalls as he turned from his cave in the side of a mountain…a massive mountain towering high above the treetops, and traveled to the south, heading along the mountain range. In fact, the mouth of the cave was even higher than the trees…and Brothul still hunkered down to a stoop when entering the cave, as it was his nature.
Brothul asked her, “So, pretty human Nora, you have been released from the war?”
“Yes, Brothul, I have been released. Now, I will be protected. Because I am not the One, not that of which Yulva should have had her soldiers search for and protect. Not the One whom should have led her armies into battle, not the One whom should have been able to smite the great Dark Lord. But I am the One who did so, and I did unleash Celestial and I did…fail. I tried and failed. And now, all that I can do is run and hide away from Ch’Rahkx and await the slavery of all of man and elf and Yatvhis to be servants to Ch’Rahkz. And once he has all of us under his foot, willing to drop the heel at the slightest twitch of rebellion or hope, what will he want…what then? There will be nothing else….”
Brothul sighed heavily and whispered, “Those who covet power and…loath those who have it…once people like that gain what they want, all they want is more and more until they have all of it. Only then, when they have all which is tangible, that which can simply be stripped of man, stripped of the mortal souls…all they want then is that which is intangible….that of immortals, that of Gods.”
“He can’t have it…” Nora said angrily.
“That is what they said about control over man.”

Chapter Two

Martene sat back in his chair with a heavy sigh and kicked his booted feet up onto the hassock, spraying dirt and dust around the fabric of the furnishing. His armor was tarnished and heavy with caked-on mud and blood, a rhyme for the masses. He took a labored breath and threw his helm against the far wall, allowing sandy brown hair to fall from beneath it and dangle around and over his neck and face. He brushed it away with his gauntleted hand, scratched his face, grunted in frustration, battled with the gauntlet until he could fling it off of his hand near his helm on the floor, and brushed the matted hair from in front of his bark brown eyes.
“Damn…” he sighed and looked about the somberly lighted room. His buddies would not come back, the laughs would not fill the room again and no more handshakes and hugs will come to be here. Everyone else who should be here, celebrating victor, was dead on the battlefield…unable to grieve and detest the woes of defeat. As bad as Martene felt, he thought that he wished to be strewn upon the heap of bodies to be collected by Imps and mongrels after the battle, than to be able to sit here and grieve…ferment….
He heard the clanking of metal outside and got to his feet. Perhaps the Imps which had trailed him most of the way here, the ones that he would swear to Fate that he’d lost long ago, had swiftly caught up to him and had found him. Damn them.
He got to his feet and pulled his six foot Zweihander from against the wall where he’d leaned it, took a powerful two hand grip and stared toward the open door as the clanking became louder. There was metallic grating as if a gauntlet had been scrapped against the stone façade of the construct. He gritted his teeth unconsciously and took a step back, only to back into the corner and as the footfalls became audible and closed in and the figure’s shadow fell in front of the doorway, a female voice moaned and Martene lowered his sword.
“s**t…” he whispered as Thanyia Wilson stumbled around the corner, her hand grasping the doorjamb.
“Well, are you going to help me in…or let me stay right here? I’m not dying, but I am so tired, I feel like I may. I’ll fall out right here and rot in front of the door. But in the end, I’ll have won…cause my arm will persist in preventing you from closing it…and making this place look like the side of a mountain once again. We both die…Martene….”
Damn, she could still throw punches.
“Am I happy to see your lousy a**!” Martene croaked, choking back a sob of joy with a dry laugh and rushed to the doorway, pulling Thanyia away from it and helping her to a chair close to them. She flopped down in it and looked up at Martene as he stood up straight.
She smiled and he said, “Get some sleep, I know Brothul took Nora…and it’s not hard to find a damned Inple…”
Thanyia smiled and nodded before she closed her eyes.
Brothul loved her for her wonderful and contagious enthusiasm. Regardless, he loved her for…her, as well. But he’d never tell her. If they were going to go and find Nora he’d need rest as well. Back to the throne of fermentation for the king of grief unbridled.

When Thanyia awakened, Martene was nowhere in sight. In fact, his sword wasn’t near his chair and his traveling bags for his waist were not on the table near the back left corner of the makeshift hideout. It was a pretty good place to hold-up in. It was a place that had been excavated in the side of a mountain. The area outside was shadowy, covered with trees and vines, the magladoria crawling all over the walls. A door had been constructed to fit snuggly in the entrance. It was on hinges and hard to find as it looked just like the rest of the cliff face.
He hadn’t left her, had he? Or had he been a simple dream. Lately, everything began to take on the quality of dreams so dark and foreboding that they may have actually been categorized more thoroughly as nightmares of the greatest potency. Sometimes, it was a great challenge to determine rather she was awake or sleeping. And if she was awake, how had the world sunk so low into darkness that a dream of such evils would have been welcomed with open hands and minds? As restless sleep was more acceptable than awakened confusion.
And right now, as always, Thanyia was confused…and perhaps even awake.
The War...
That’s what had she’d wished could have been a dream. Now she remembered. The damned war…battle…slaughter? Yes, the slaughter. She’d watched so many die. And in fact, one of her closest friends had passed from this realm of existence to the next right in her arms. They were arms with adjacent hands which she’d thought were fit for battle, that of which she thought were capable of holding a sword, taking up arms and fighting in a battle much more grand and important to the entire world than she would ever be. But, when so many fight for a cause, they are all equally important. There are no more ranks and statuses when real combat takes place. Not when the captains and generals and kings must step up and draw their decorated weapons and plunge deep into the abyss as well as their commanded soldiers. Shoulder to shoulder with soldiers and even peasants which they’d never share a cup of ale, never hand over a sliver of veal or even break Those Less Fortunate:

When Nora awakened from a long and unexpected slumber, she sat up, wincing as the pain in her right flank struck home, attacked her with a quick jolt of memory and she quickly came to her senses, looking about her for some clue as to where she might have been. It was dark in the cavernous room when she realized that Brothul must have carried her here after the battle at the Temple of Gartherz, beyond the Legion’s Castle walls. She hadn’t expected it to be so bad…it hadn’t been a battle…. It had been an onslaught.
She heard strange susurrations permeating the room, seeping through the walls. She sat up in the massive bed, much too large for her, and looked around slowly. The room was bathed in hazy and…almost thick incandescence which she knew the warm walls created of their own powers, making her feel as if she’d need to swim through it as she got up from the warm bed. Trust, she didn’t want to get up…she had to get up. Had to. She swung her feet over the edge of the huge bed and took a deep breath. She was just beginning to grasp the enormity of Brothul’s room, as she had to crane her neck all of the way back in order to see the ceiling. Well, for Fate’s sake, he was an Inple. She readied herself, grabbed her sore right flank and jumped…falling fifteen feet before she landed in a crouch. With a grunt of pain she got to her feet and turned, realizing that if she’d wished, she could have walked under the giant’s bed. So large…and so graceful he was.
She walked over to one of the walls and watched them pulsate with their own light and she whispered, “I’d wished I could standout as you do…glow like you. But…me, I’m still a humble girl, right….simply pulled into a war effort way beyond my time…and far beyond my ability to affect…”
Behind her, a soft yet eloquent voice spoke out in a throaty moan, “Gives new meaning to the saying ‘talking to walls’.”
Nora turned, her long crimson and brown hair falling around her as she jumped with a pip… She’d startled rather easily, always had.
“Quinn,” she croaked, almost choking, “you…why, you’re here…”
“Of course I am….” The man said from the shadows, “I always was…”
“Quinn, I am…so…afraid of what I may have caused…what I have done. What have I done…?” She asked, herself more than him.
Nora brought her hands to her breasts and pushed her fingers between her cleavage and dropped her head. She’d taken charge, hadn’t she, in a fiery mood for vengeance and had charged into battle, a host of forest and mystical creatures in-tow and had assaulted Ch’Rahkx’s castle….and they’d been slaughtered…almost all of them.
She could remember the battle, the smell of flames, the thick and poignant scent of animal flesh, burning beneath tides and tides of searing magma. So much flesh cauterized as wounds were inflicted by the flaming swords of the Nach’Chra, so many lives extinguished as if embers burning…lingering to their lives as man often had to, trying their bests to breathe…to continue on. Embers burning in campfires, only to be snuffed out when they finally gather hope. That’s what they’d said, that Nora, a simple girl, had been their hope. So powerful, so profound. Hope of which the likes they’d never had. It was a…cliché and old assumption that, simply because you’re chosen to perform a great task…simply because they all say it so, that you can do it. And Nora…well, hell, Nora couldn’t. And all of the bodies burned and lost in front of the keep and temple were evidence enough.
All of them were signs…each and every last one.
They’d charged fast and silent until the last moment. An army of rebels. Humans, Inples, Treants, Elves and even the Yatvhis attacked…but the Dark Legion had been ready with flames of Hell. Each of them, the dreaded Nach’Chra had carried a flaming sword. The beasts of Hell, the wraiths, and ravaged souls controlled by Ch’Rahkx’s Necromancers, the Etuls, were the Nach’Chra. Beasts once human, shrouded in armor created of Dark Magique. Only allowed to live on in pain, cursed to kill their kind. Each of them carried a flaming sword and knew well enough how to wield the evil contraption.
And the cauldrons along the battlements, standing upon parabolic holsters set between the crenellations, held tight with roping by bewitched Inples, were released and mamga flowed along the walls and took many lives…many. The assault was almost completely in vain. Almost…as Nora had found her strength, had released the Holy and Celestial powers, which she’d been promised. Yet, upon using them to save the lives of four, she’d taken a knee, stricken with a deep pain in her right side. She’d reached her hand down and she tensed as pain coursed through her and a warm liquid coated her palm.… She knew it was blood, she just knew it. She looked around to her right as a figure walked around her…she looked up toward its face…only to see that Unter….her own love, had stabbed her in order to stop her from taking on the Dark Legion.
He spat in her face and screamed at her, whipping his finger back toward the castle walls, “Do you see, do you see what you’ve done?! We were better off with our subservient existence. We’re simple country plebian and that’s what we should stay. We’re better off at home, in front of our fireplaces, reading to our children! Not here, not rising against an enemy that we can not defeat! But you, you let that damned Yulva Larnya fill your simple head with all of this ‘profound’ bullshit about taking the world back! You’re too simple, that’s what you are, too plain to save the world. You just can’t do it. I’d rather be a farmer for the Legion…. I’d rather be a slave, than to be deep with the whyrms and grubs and gone, buried on the edge of the Human Territories.”
“We’re not meant to rise against!” Unter had screamed, spittle causing his bruised lips to glisten…and it made his snarl appear even more forbidding. “Not...meant to…” he chided…and from behind, Fallun had severed his head with the quick slash of a sword.
Then, the retreat had began.
It had been swift. Even the attack (slaughter) itself had lasted longer. And as those still able to flee did so, Nora found herself holding….cradling…crying over the head of her love who’d tried to kill her. Then, the head was plucked away from her by just a thumb and forefinger. And as she fainted, Brothul picked her up in one hand and carried her off.
Now, she looked up, eyes glazed over with fresh tears and stared toward the shadows, looking for Quinn’s silhouette.
“My…side, Quinn….?”
“I healed you Nora, of course…”
“Thank you…” Nora said and hesitated, “Quinn?”
“You, Nora….were not the one….”
Nora…dropped to her knees and stared at the palms of her hands. She looked up as the tall, white haired angel stepped forth. “That’s not fair…it’s not…right….” She choked up on a powerful sob and fainted, her forehead smacking against the hard stone floor.












































Chapter One

Nora awakened in pain for the second time in half an hour and stared into the clear, pupil-less eyes of Quinn. His feminine and stunning face, clear of brow or any inclination of masculine stubble, tanned beautifully, sturdy and high cheek boned with a slightly pointed nose and soft jaw line, was only inches from hers. “You, Nora, are not the one which Fate wished to take charge. Thus, it was not time for the rebellion.”
“But…I used the powers…”
“Of your own accord. It was not because of the prophecy. The prophecy may be falsified. The message was received wrongly, in error. The prophet is gone…he was of the Legion. You, Nora, are an anomaly.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning: You were not supposed to lead the armies into the battle. You were not supposed to unleash the power of the Celestials. And because you did so, of your own wants and needs, you are an anomaly. Yulva Larnya is sorry that she pulled you into this and says that you can go home whenever you wish… But for now, she will ask you to go into hiding…”
Quinn was the voice of Yulva Larnya, the Queen and Goddess of Gavelhan.
“Sorry!? That’s all she is, is sorry? I lost my love and almost my entire life, figuratively and literally and all that she can say is ‘sorry, pack it up and move out’?”
Quinn regarded her solemnly but did not speak. He was an Angel of Fate and Yulva, especially, and was damn near void of human emotion. Sometimes, Nora pitied him.
Now, he pitied her.
“This is not fair! How can a mistake like this have been made?”
“That, is only because of Ch’Rahkx’s influence. In fact, the pact between him and Yulva Larnya is that he cannot attack us unless we attacked him, seeing as he already controls over eighty percent of the human and elf population. In that regard, it is believed that he falsified the prophecy in order to make us attack. Now, Yulva thinks that he will strike a blow directly against her…and without her, the world is his to do with as he sees fit-”
“-and…” Nora pushed.
“-and it is believed that because you did, in fact, lead the army, that we will not have a chance to ready a defensive position, nor will we be able to see if we can really find the one who was prophesized about. He will send the Nach’Chra for you…and finish what your dear Unter started…”
“Dear….dear? Is that human sarcasm, silly human sarcasm! Or…is that an attempt at the exploitation of the irony of my situation! Because I know the irony of this quite well! I understand the irony of all of this quite well, I assure you! So well that it hurts! I don’t need you to show me…and I don’t wish for you to be here any longer!!”
Quinn blinked and looked upon Nora rather somberly. “That is not how I intended to portray my message to you. And as I have done so, I wish to ask for your true forgiveness of my insolence.”
Confused and flustered, Nora squinted and furled her brow. “Well….o-okay then… Not so dramatic.”
They were silent. Their gazes locked.
The only sound was the soft whistle of the wind brushing through the nulix lace hanging from the ceiling at the head of the cave. Nora finally broke the monotonous, disquieting lack of sound when she asked, “So, what happens now…?”
“I have solicited the protection of the Inple… He will take you to the Last Elvaic Stand and you will be protected there. It is a place that few can find and even less can travel unhindered. He will take you there and you will be safe as Ch’Rahkx’s minions can not find it without the aid of others…and even then, the Dark Elves within the towering trees will make quick work of them. The Nach’Chra are immortal, naught…”
“Fine…but I won’t like it….”
“I am happy that you do not protest… You should make haste. Brothul has gathered provisions for you and waypoints have been set up. A harbinger has been set up in each place and will await your arrival. Yulva bless you, and Fate’s speed….”
With that….Quinn was gone. Nora was alone.
Nora was…alone.

When Nora finally walked out of the cave, the lights stung her eyes and she squinted and shied back from the brilliance of the hazy radiance falling through the leaves of the gulbak oak trees. The lights feel upon her, caressing her and animating a shadow behind her, bringing the darkness to a state of borrowed life. She yelled loudly and the leg next to her, the same size as the massive tree trunks, turned, and a foot almost collided with her. But, she took a quickened step back and giggled as the Inple, Brothul, kneeled down near her and still, his knee was above her head. He held his massive, scarred hand down toward her and she stepped upon it, using his calloused thumb as a hold. She walked into his palm and he pulled her upwards.
A massive shadows blotted out the sunlight as Brothul got to his feet, hovering his hand above Nora as he raised to his feet and brushed away tree branches and limbs with the back of his hand, cracking some of them. He finally pulled her above the treetops and she giggled once again as she covered her head out of reflex. He peered in-between his hands with one massive eye and she could tell that a smile had washed over his soft features as he was so large, that she could hear his skin flex and tighten. He spoke in a whisper as he removed his hand from over her and asked her, “Is the pretty human lady with the shining stool thing going to protect you?”
“Yes, Brothul, she is going to protect us…”
Whispering again, but speaking as loud…perhaps even louder than Nora, Brothul quipped, “Yes, protection is a must or else, you turn to dust…”
She’d loved his little rhyming jokes.
“Yes, Brothul, indeed, you will… And if you turn to dust-”
“-be swept away, you must…” he smiled again, but never laughed…always smiled, but never laughed.
The first and last time her laughed in Nora’s presence, he’d almost killed her.
Brothul was, as all Inples are, huge, and towered over most of the trees in the world. But for creatures so massive, they were always gentle and loving. They were only forceful or angry when they were in battle or protecting those that they loved. And one thing about Inples is: regardless of how gentle they can be, they are stubborn and will only protect those that they really love. Gentle and cautious. Kindness can be misleading. It can appear to be weakness. So, they only reveal their gentleness to those that they can trust with the truth of it. But an Inples love can grow within them and be so powerful and persistent, that it can seem as if their entire grandiose frames were filled with it. If that could be so. As love was not a tangible object or thing.
But in knowing Brothul, Nora begged to differ.
In order to hug Brothul, as she always did, Nora held out her arms and Brothul pulled her to his calm, handsome face, and she hugged his nose with all of her little human strength. Brothul pulled Nora around to his shoulder in order to place her near his ear so that they could talk as they traveled. Nora was so high up that she could not hear the Inple’s footfalls as he turned from his cave in the side of a mountain…a massive mountain towering high above the treetops, and traveled to the south, heading along the mountain range. In fact, the mouth of the cave was even higher than the trees…and Brothul still hunkered down to a stoop when entering the cave, as it was his nature.
Brothul asked her, “So, pretty human Nora, you have been released from the war?”
“Yes, Brothul, I have been released. Now, I will be protected. Because I am not the One, not that of which Yulva should have had her soldiers search for and protect. Not the One whom should have led her armies into battle, not the One whom should have been able to smite the great Dark Lord. But I am the One who did so, and I did unleash Celestial and I did…fail. I tried and failed. And now, all that I can do is run and hide away from Ch’Rahkx and await the slavery of all of man and elf and Yatvhis to be servants to Ch’Rahkz. And once he has all of us under his foot, willing to drop the heel at the slightest twitch of rebellion or hope, what will he want…what then? There will be nothing else….”
Brothul sighed heavily and whispered, “Those who covet power and…loath those who have it…once people like that gain what they want, all they want is more and more until they have all of it. Only then, when they have all which is tangible, that which can simply be stripped of man, stripped of the mortal souls…all they want then is that which is intangible….that of immortals, that of Gods.”
“He can’t have it…” Nora said angrily.
“That is what they said about control over man.”

Chapter Two

Martene sat back in his chair with a heavy sigh and kicked his booted feet up onto the hassock, spraying dirt and dust around the fabric of the furnishing. His armor was tarnished and heavy with caked-on mud and blood, a rhyme for the masses. He took a labored breath and threw his helm against the far wall, allowing sandy brown hair to fall from beneath it and dangle around and over his neck and face. He brushed it away with his gauntleted hand, scratched his face, grunted in frustration, battled with the gauntlet until he could fling it off of his hand near his helm on the floor, and brushed the matted hair from in front of his bark brown eyes.
“Damn…” he sighed and looked about the somberly lighted room. His buddies would not come back, the laughs would not fill the room again and no more handshakes and hugs will come to be here. Everyone else who should be here, celebrating victor, was dead on the battlefield…unable to grieve and detest the woes of defeat. As bad as Martene felt, he thought that he wished to be strewn upon the heap of bodies to be collected by Imps and mongrels after the battle, than to be able to sit here and grieve…ferment….
He heard the clanking of metal outside and got to his feet. Perhaps the Imps which had trailed him most of the way here, the ones that he would swear to Fate that he’d lost long ago, had swiftly caught up to him and had found him. Damn them.
He got to his feet and pulled his six foot Zweihander from against the wall where he’d leaned it, took a powerful two hand grip and stared toward the open door as the clanking became louder. There was metallic grating as if a gauntlet had been scrapped against the stone façade of the construct. He gritted his teeth unconsciously and took a step back, only to back into the corner and as the footfalls became audible and closed in and the figure’s shadow fell in front of the doorway, a female voice moaned and Martene lowered his sword.
“s**t…” he whispered as Thanyia Wilson stumbled around the corner, her hand grasping the doorjamb.
“Well, are you going to help me in…or let me stay right here? I’m not dying, but I am so tired, I feel like I may. I’ll fall out right here and rot in front of the door. But in the end, I’ll have won…cause my arm will persist in preventing you from closing it…and making this place look like the side of a mountain once again. We both die…Martene….”
Damn, she could still throw punches.
“Am I happy to see your lousy a**!” Martene croaked, choking back a sob of joy with a dry laugh and rushed to the doorway, pulling Thanyia away from it and helping her to a chair close to them. She flopped down in it and looked up at Martene as he stood up straight.
She smiled and he said, “Get some sleep, I know Brothul took Nora…and it’s not hard to find a damned Inple…”
Thanyia smiled and nodded before she closed her eyes.
Brothul loved her for her wonderful and contagious enthusiasm. Regardless, he loved her for…her, as well. But he’d never tell her. If they were going to go and find Nora he’d need rest as well. Back to the throne of fermentation for the king of grief unbridled.

When Thanyia awakened, Martene was nowhere in sight. In fact, his sword wasn’t near his chair and his traveling bags for his waist were not on the table near the back left corner of the makeshift hideout. It was a pretty good place to hold-up in. It was a place that had been excavated in the side of a mountain. The area outside was shadowy, covered with trees and vines, the magladoria crawling all over the walls. A door had been constructed to fit snuggly in the entrance. It was on hinges and hard to find as it looked just like the rest of the cliff face.
He hadn’t left her, had he? Or had he been a simple dream. Lately, everything began to take on the quality of dreams so dark and foreboding that they may have actually been categorized more thoroughly as nightmares of the greatest potency. Sometimes, it was a great challenge to determine rather she was awake or sleeping. And if she was awake, how had the world sunk so low into darkness that a dream of such evils would have been welcomed with open hands and minds? As restless sleep was more acceptable than awakened confusion.
And right now, as always, Thanyia was confused…and perhaps even awake.
The War…
That’s what had she’d wished could have been a dream. Now she remembered. The damned war…battle…slaughter? Yes, the slaughter. She’d watched so many die. And in fact, one of her closest friends had passed from this realm of existence to the next right in her arms. They were arms with adjacent hands which she’d thought were fit for battle, that of which she thought were capable of holding a sword, taking up arms and fighting in a battle much more grand and important to the entire world than she would ever be. But, when so many fight for a cause, they are all equally important. There are no more ranks and statuses when real combat takes place. Not when the captains and generals and kings must step up and draw their decorated weapons and plunge deep into the abyss as well as their commanded soldiers. Shoulder to shoulder with soldiers and even peasants which they’d never share a cup of ale, never hand over a sliver of veal or even break away a crumb of fresh baked bread from their own slab.
But, in death, they would lie shoulder to shoulder as well and share what…? Glory? Dignity? Honor?
That’s what you were taught though, that the greatest honor, the greatest glory, the way to be remembered, was to die in battle. To die, fighting for what you believed in. That was a crock of s**t. There was no glory in death and you would receive no pity from the enemy. They would strip your bruised and bloating body, covered in your own excrement, of all dignity and honor and toss you upon a heap with the rest of the fallen “glorified deceased” and set the mound ablaze, the wyvern and harpy ladies forcing the rancid and disgusting miasma upon the fields of the human territories to remind all of them to never rise up, to never fight.
Where was the glory in that, the honor…?
Thanyia tried her best to force the thoughts away for another time. Right now, her biggest concern was finding Martene. If he were somewhere to be found, she would find him and then, Nora.
When she got to her feet with a grunt of excruciating pain, she realized that her body was sore…probably sorer than she ever had been. But, with the way events had been playing themselves out, it would not be the last time she’d be this sore.



away a crumb of fresh baked bread from their own slab.
But, in death, they would lie shoulder to shoulder as well and share what…? Glory? Death? Honor?
That’s what you were taught though, that the greatest honor, the greatest glory, the way to be remembered, was to die in battle. To die, fighting what you believed in.