A thousand suns

A thousands suns


~by chain

"More than a thousand
years ago, the most powerful wizards in the southern hemisphere gathered in
the Erathian region to unite their powers. Using time-magic the wizards were
able to see the future in one, intense moment, draining mana that would take
centuries to restore. The wizards knew that what they had seen in that moment
could not be revealed until that time had passed. Using the rest of their powers
they wrote it down in the book of confessions and sealed it with magic. Then
they locked it up in the west-tower of their castle. Two years later the castle
was lost to a knight named Ingham in a siege that lasted for weeks. Ingham however
was unable to dispel and open the book even with help from sorceress Edea, one
of the most powerful sorceresses of that time. Unfortunately he was forced to
leave the castle when a horde of goblins rushed it a decade later and he lost
most of his men. The book was never seen again. Until now…”

I yawned and looked
up at the sun. I was lying in the grass next to my unicorn that was slowly eating
leafs of an old willow next to me when I suddenly heard something closing in
on me from behind. My fingers went for my sword and I leaped up and turned around
with my sword raised above my head. The funny little character froze and dropped
the large old book he was carrying. It was only a harmless leprechaun. I was
about to lower my sword when he suddenly yelled out and ran of into the forest.
I sighed and picked up the book. It was full of dust and scratches and it even
had some areas where it looked like someone had tried to burn it. It seemed
like the pages was made of papyrus, and the book was sealed with a large rusty
metal lock without a keyhole. I picked up a rock and placed it under the lock.
I took my sword and hit the lock with all my strength. It resulted in a whole
lot of sparks as my sword slid of the lock and hit the rock underneath it. It
was weird. A warlock blacksmith had specially designed my sword so that it would
be able to cut through metal, but the lock had only got a little scratch. I
went over to my leather bag standing next to the willow and took out my spellbook
of advanced sorcery. I had inherited it from the old wizard that had made me
an expert spell caster.

I opened the spell book and started to cast one spell after the other. Finally
I placed the book on a granite rock in an open area between the trees. I went
about 20 feet away and summoned a huge fireball. It rose above my head. It torched
a couple of bushes as I sent it towards the book. The force of the impact was
so powerful that it knocked me over into the grass. I got on my knees and saw
a halo of blue light surrounding the book. I raised my hand into the air and
the next second a lightening struck the book. An intense flash of light appeared
as the lightening broke the seal on the book. I went over to the mystic book
and removed the broken lock. I sat down under the willow and opened it carefully.
It contained a lot of history and large events from the last millennium. My
attention soon turned to the last pages. It told the story of the fall of Enroth.
Enroth was one of the largest evil forces on the face of the planet. Enroth
is located in the middle of a volcanic area covered by a thick layer of smoke
and surrounded by toxic gasses, active volcanoes and open streams of lava. The
castle of Enroth itself is carved out of an old volcano. No one has ever made
any successful attacks on Enroth. The last one to try was Sanya the Sorceress,
but she had to give up when more than half of her forces died trying to find
their way through the hostile landscape. The rest committed mutiny and Sanya
was sacrificed to make sure they got out alive.

The book told how the central parts of Enroth would be completely destroyed
by a small comet from outer space, drawn to the castle by its own evil powers.

So here I was. Holding an ancient book that contained information that could
create large mess if it got into the wrong hands. It also contained information
about the only thing that could make the comet change back to its original course.
It was a holy gem that could be combined with space-magic to prevent the comet
from striking Enroth. If the people of Enroth got hold of this information,
they would be able to save themselves and possibly gain even more power. At
the same moment I heard the screams of some scared goblins. Out from the forest
it came running 10-15 goblins. Some of them were carrying weapons, but to my
surprise they didn’t even look at me as they ran by and down the hill.
I put the book into my sack, got up on my unicorn, and rode into the forest.

Surrounded by some
dead leprechauns and goblins I could see a pack of trolls armed with bludgeons.
It silently tied my unicorn to a tree nearby, and went closer to have a look.
The trolls seemed to be searching the houses for something, but it didn’t
look like a raiding party, the ranks seemed too well organised. They were probably
from Enroth but what were they doing out here? Suddenly I felt an intense pain
in the back of my head and it all turned black. When I woke up it was dark and
my head was still hurting. I looked for my unicorn. I found it under the tree
where I had left it, but my leather-bag had been opened. The old book was gone!
I took a quick look around to see if I had missed something, before I got on
my unicorn and headed straight for Erathia.

Three days later
I stood in front of the king of Erathia and his council. I told them all about
the book and that the Enroth trolls had stolen it from me in the forest. The
council told me that they already knew of the existence of the book, but that
they had tried to keep it a secret because it was supposed to contain a horrible
secret. They had tried many times to locate the book, but all attempts had been
unsuccessful. That wasn’t such a bad thing in itself, but now that Enroth
had the unsealed book, they would soon try to find the holy gem to protect themselves
from the comet.

Our only chance was to locate and destroy the gem before it was too late. If
we managed that, the comet would destroy most of Enroth and Erathia would regain
its power. Over the last years Enroth forces had began to invade Erathian territory
and they had laid waste on large areas of farmland, and people living close
to the borders had began to move towards the centre of the kingdom to avoid
the destruction of the evil Enroth forces. This again made it easier for the
Enroth forces to get hold of new land as they continued burning down house after
house on their way towards the city of Erathia.

Since I had good experience with magic and I was pretty good with my sword,
the council chose me to find the gem, or if necessary, steal it from Enroth.
They accompanied me with a really strong orge, Saurug, and an expert swordsman
named Bron.

After a good nights
sleep, we sat course for the Temple in the mountains to the north were they
kept the gem. We rode as fast as the unicorns could endure, both day and night,
and only stopped when it was necessary. After two days we were far up into the
mountains when Bron noticed a small army at the bottom of the valley. It was
a mage carrying a black metal box, escorted by a pack of black knights and some
troglodyte archers.

Over the next hill we could see what we had feared the most. The temple was
in ruins. The black smoke rose straight up into the clear sky. The snow around
the temple was colored with the blood of the priests that had tried to defend
themselves from the superior force.

We turned around
at once and sat course for Enroth. The Enroth army rarely left any survivors
so there was nothing that we could do here and we needed all the time we could
get.

The Book of Confessions didn’t say so much about the exact time the comet
would strike, but we had less than five days to prevent Enroth from forcing
it back into orbit.

Two days later
we arrived at a small village on the outskirts of the volcanic land surrounding
the central parts of Enroth. The village was deep into Enroth territory but
was still loyal to Erathia. From here we sent a message to the council about
our current situation knowing that the reinforcements would not arrive in time
to help us. We explained our situation to the people in the village, and we
gathered a troop of phoenixes. Since they were good flyers they task would be
to catch up to the Enroth escort and try to take the gem by force, or at least
try to delay them as much as possible. As the phoenixes rose up into the dark
sky and headed for the escort, we packed some food and a lot of fresh water,
which was impossible to get deeper into Enroth territory. The volcanoes and
lava streams had poisoned the few sources of water left in Enroth with sulphur
and it had become very toxic. Water was a big problem for those who had attempted
to siege Enroth throughout the times.

Me, Bron and Saurug saddled the unicorns, we had to travel alone, since the
locals were too afraid to go any closer to the castle of Enroth. In the horizon
we could se the silhouettes of 13 phoenixes.

After a long gruelling
day a terrible sight met us. We turned around a sharp corner on the path and
almost stumbled into the bloody battlefield. We found nine of the phoenixes
brutally slaughtered, the other four had probably been lost on the way. Most
had been shot down with arrows, and the survivors had probably died by the swords
of the black knights. The wings of the phoenixes were covered with a thick layer
of ash. The feathers on one of them were seriously burned. The heavy clouds
of smoke and toxic gasses had probably forced the phoenixes to go down so low
to survive that they had been easy targets by the escort. Even so, we found
a horse and a sword from one of the black knights. The horse had been burned
to death, and so had probably the knight. The reason that his corpse was gone
was that the Enroth usually took their dead with them home, to raise skeleton
warriors. This way, when they lost a warrior, it was possible that they would
gain another. The skeleton warriors were pretty fragile, but they didn’t
eat, drink or sleep, which was very good since the water supply was limited.
In combat, a hit by a sword or another heavy object could easily make the skeletons
fall apart, but they were always in large numbers, they knew how to handle a
sword, and they usually scared the crap out of any attacking force. A horde
of skeleton warriors was absolutely something you didn’t want to meet after
sundown.

We spent the next
day forcing our way through the volcanic topography, fighting of hungry animals
and rouges. We encountered no border guards. They had probably been called to
the castle to help with the evacuation. As we got to the castle of Enroth we
could see colourful lights lighting up the entire castle. The warlocks had already
started to use the powers of the gem. The unicorns were in no condition to continue
so we put them to sleep and left them behind some large rocks. It was a terrible
thing to do, but they would never had survived the trip back to Erathia and
it was better than leaving them to the Enroth forces. We went up to the front
gate and asked the guards to let us in. Our clothes were covered with dust and
ash, and we were dirty and looked like hell, so we didn’t stand out, but
of course they had orders not to let anyone through the gates until after the
ceremony. One of the guards drew his sword to show that they were serious. As
he did this Saurug reacted instinctively and gave him a so hard punch in the
face that he flew almost a meter through the air before he hit the ground. He
died instantly. Bron hit the other guard right in the chest with his sword.
I exchanged swords with Bron, and with one powerful strike he sliced the iron
lock in half. We open the huge door and snuck in.

In the courtyard
there were gathered hordes of skeleton warriors, black knights, troglodytes,
gremlins, and some other strange creatures. They were all gathered around some
warlocks. In the middle there were an old warlock casting spells and summoning
spirits around the gem. It was glowing with an intense red glow. It was impossible
to get through the crowd, besides it was not a tempting thought to try to sneak
by hundreds of skeletons and black knights armed with swords and spears. Then
I noticed that the summoning took place almost right under a small guard tower
on the west wall. We opened a wooden door in the wall and entered the tower.
We went up the spiral staircase and around the last turn we could hear the voices
of two guards. It was a guard tower so it didn’t come as a surprise. I
looked carefully around the corner. The two guards were standing next to the
window watching the ceremony outside. They were probably not looking for a couple
of characters in dirty clothes but an easy-to-see Erathian force trying to stop
them. A couple of minutes later we looked out the window. The guards were lying
unconscious under a table. We were right above the warlocks. I looked up. The
comet was shining brightly in the sky, growing larger for every minute. We used
our swords to loosen a large loose rock from the wall. Saurug carried it over
to the window. As he lifted the stone to throw it down at the gem to destroy
it one of the warlocks accidentally looked up. He yelled something and as Saurug
threw the stone out the window a ball of lightening hit him right in the chest.
He was thrown through the room and knocked his head into the wall. He stood
up and stared right at us with his big yellow eyes. Then he tipped forwards
and landed on the floor with a big “thump”. Bron and me ran over to
him. He was still breathing. As Bron tried to block the door with the table
I ran over to the window and carefully looked out. Underneath me it was an intense
chaos. The black knights had panicked and were trying to make their way out
of the castle. The skeleton warriors on the other hand didn’t have a mind
of their own and were trying to make their way into the tower. Besides they
were already dead, so they didn’t fear death. The heavy rock had crushed
the gem, and the warlocks were desperately casting magic towards the comet,
but it was no use. The burning comet was closing in with an enormous speed.
It lighted up the most of the castle. I took up a small bottle filled with a
potion I had been preparing. I went over to Bron that were desperately trying
to keep the skeleton warriors from breaking through the door. I drank the potion
and concentrated. I put my hands up in the air, and a spherical force field
slowly surrounded Bron, Saurug on the floor and me. The door gave after for
the skeletons with a loud noise just as a bright light shone through the window
like a thousand suns.

I remember seeing
the combusted bones of hundreds of skeletons shattering into razor sharp fragments
as they struck the glowing force field. As the shockwave hit the field followed
by melted rock and burning pieces of matter, the force field almost gave after
to the enormous pressure but we barely made it. After a few minutes of intense
heat I collapsed.

I woke up a day
later on a nicely made bed in some sort of wagon. I could feel that we were
moving. I sat up in my bed and looked out of the wagon. Outside we were still
in Enroth. The landscape had been drastically changed. The ground consisted
mostly of sand and stone that had been turned into glass. In the distant I could
see whatever that was left of vegetation burning fiercely, lighting up the empty
landscape. I lied back into the bed. Enroth was completely destroyed and Erathia
was once again safe.

This was certainly worth a good rest.