The immortal queen beginning the fall of Eldarim
She stood on the shore gazing through the predawn twilight at the small boat that had brought her across the choppy waves of the shattered coast. She turned her back on it and the nation it was returning to letting the smell of the salt air fill her nose and enjoying the spray of the sea on her skin. She couldn’t lose herself in it, the presence of the sword at her side weighing on her, she walked across the dunes towards the enemy.
She crested a hill and saw the tents of the enemy. She placed her hand on the hilt tracing the silk cord that they’d rebound the ancient sword with. The ray skin beneath the wrappings felt rough even to her calloused fingers. But as she couldn’t feel him she stopped Looking down at the camps in the valleys below.
Looking at the pink horizon she asked.
“At dawn?”
Getting exactly the response you’d expect from asking the empty air a question she sat.
“You fucks always gotta be dramatic.”
Her muttered retort earned her no response so she waited until the dawn arrived. A crucible of molten sunlight poured across the land setting the Palewood groves ablaze with light, and criss crossing the hills all the way into the distance with the shadowed rows of grapevines. She felt his presence then, a remorse and wretched despair that almost toppled her. She knew he regretted making the sword and hated what it would do here but he was as much involved in this as she was. But when she tried to move she couldn’t; her eyes remained locked on the tableau.
“You wanted a last look.”
She was suddenly free’d as he retracted, she could still feel him. How could she not, the lightness in her body, the connectedness with everything, the sense that she could work out any problem given enough time. She moved her hand back to the blade and this time there were sparks.
She slipped the blade just an inch from it’s scabbard and the hillside exploded. The sea grass flattened and then turned to ash around her. The sandy soil exploded into the air leaving her enshrouded in a dust cloud. To the elves looking up the hill it must have been quite the sight, a single hobgoblin walking out of an explosion drawing a living flame from a scabbard.
She had worn armour that morning worried that a stray arrow might end things early, she needn’t have been. As she finished drawing it the sand in the soil turned to glass, walking west down the hill the bushes and then trees ignited. She walked out of an inferno to a hail of arrows that evaporated midair. She killed them all and it was sickeningly easy.
As she worked she felt him withdraw, leaving his power with her but moving his awareness away. Anger flared in her, worshipped like a god but unable to deal with the responsibility, unbeatable power but unwilling to wield it, unable to do the dirty work. It’d be better if the lords didn’t exist. A she reached the end of the army she looked back, the sun setting at her back cast a hellish tint over the already infernal landscape of charred corpses and burned trees.
“Now to finish it, I’m sorry. You were a faithful servant.”
She hurled the sword as far as she could, the wards mostly protected her but they failed around the sword. She felt the searing pain of the heat lash through her whole righ arm before her mind shut the pain out. “Maybe they can do their own dirty work.”
She mused, and then passed out.
“At dawn?”
Getting exactly the response you’d expect from asking the empty air a question she sat.
“You fucks always gotta be dramatic.”
Her muttered retort earned her no response so she waited until the dawn arrived. A crucible of molten sunlight poured across the land setting the Palewood groves ablaze with light, and criss crossing the hills all the way into the distance with the shadowed rows of grapevines. She felt his presence then, a remorse and wretched despair that almost toppled her. She knew he regretted making the sword and hated what it would do here but he was as much involved in this as she was. But when she tried to move she couldn’t; her eyes remained locked on the tableau.
“You wanted a last look.”
She was suddenly free’d as he retracted, she could still feel him. How could she not, the lightness in her body, the connectedness with everything, the sense that she could work out any problem given enough time. She moved her hand back to the blade and this time there were sparks.
She slipped the blade just an inch from it’s scabbard and the hillside exploded. The sea grass flattened and then turned to ash around her. The sandy soil exploded into the air leaving her enshrouded in a dust cloud. To the elves looking up the hill it must have been quite the sight, a single hobgoblin walking out of an explosion drawing a living flame from a scabbard.
She had worn armour that morning worried that a stray arrow might end things early, she needn’t have been. As she finished drawing it the sand in the soil turned to glass, walking west down the hill the bushes and then trees ignited. She walked out of an inferno to a hail of arrows that evaporated midair. She killed them all and it was sickeningly easy.
As she worked she felt him withdraw, leaving his power with her but moving his awareness away. Anger flared in her, worshipped like a god but unable to deal with the responsibility, unbeatable power but unwilling to wield it, unable to do the dirty work. It’d be better if the lords didn’t exist. A she reached the end of the army she looked back, the sun setting at her back cast a hellish tint over the already infernal landscape of charred corpses and burned trees.
“Now to finish it, I’m sorry. You were a faithful servant.”
She hurled the sword as far as she could, the wards mostly protected her but they failed around the sword. She felt the searing pain of the heat lash through her whole righ arm before her mind shut the pain out. “Maybe they can do their own dirty work.”
She mused, and then passed out.
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