The Sword to Unite

by Peter J. Hopkins

  The beast approached, and it spoke in a booming voice deep as cracking thunder. ‘Pay homage to me, small lords, for I shall reward you greatly! Abandon Matuar, for he has divided your people and allowed your enemies to gather in strength! Only in my burning gaze can you restore the glory of your houses!’

  The host of lords ran terrified from the forest, shouting words of worship for the Black Elk. In the capital of Zelphi, Esden, the shrines to Matuar were destroyed, and in their place, a bundle of black antlers, between which two flames burn in oiled lamps. When this had been done, the commoners of Zelphi grumbled and prepared to rebel, for they had considered themselves blessed by the sea god. It was in this time of dissent that Tanari to the west laid siege to many the Zelphine castles. Rogbert, adorned with a crown as golden and burning as a flame, led his host from Esden and set out to turn back the foreign invaders.

  They came to the eastern edge of the Zelphine Forest, where the Tanari had rallied and made camp. Rogbert collapsed onto his knees and prayed facing the forest, crying out for the Black Elk to hear him. ‘Lord hear us today, and deliver us from this foul foreign host! I shall order my men to paint your burning eyes on their shields, and if we are victorious I shall build you a temple where I slay their commander!’

  And so, the Zelphi army painted their shields black, with red and yellows eyes at the center. The Elk worshippers charged forward, overwhelming the Tanari in the veil of the night. Rogbert slew the Tanari commander, raising his helmet to the cheer of the Zelphine army, who relished in their victory with drinking and feasting.

  Rogbert made good on his promise, constructing a massive temple that rivaled the splendor of his palace. Now his descendants are bound to the forest, giving great bounties of sacrifices to their Elk God, and his line of kings has long held their kingdom together, by will or supernatural powers is known to none.

  The Areni Isles

  Off the southern coast of Yennen, where the sea is heated as a pool with summer sun, four large isles, known as the Areni, hold a proud and ancient people. The Areni themselves are of mixed descent, half of their blood hailing from their native isles, where the folk had a tanner skin, though by no mark as dark as the Tanari to the northern continent. Their other blood, from Eln, from the line of Bandabras. Bandabras was a famed Elnish explorer, with scores of ships in his large fleet. He was the first man to chart Yennen and the Areni Isles accurately, and his maps are coveted as priceless relics and invaluable tools.

  With the full array of his fleet, Bandabras landed on the Summer Isle, the northernmost of Areni, and proclaimed himself as king. Taking the princess of that Isle, Helia of Fane, the ruling family of that land, Bandabras gained a legal right to rule. Though Helia first thought herself a prisoner in a foreign man’s court, she came to respect the wisdom and ambition of her husband. Though they did not deeply love one another, they found it an opportunistic union, forming a strong bond with one another.

  In a few years’ time, the Summer Isle, Calto, the Comet, Melos, and the rest of the islands were under Bandabras’ rule, the first time in history such a feat had been done. Though this was not to last. When Bandabras lay dying upon his bed, he had four sons, and only one was mothered by Helia, the prince Badabran. The others were his bastards, who carried his ambition and intellect, and each vied for their father’s affection. At last Bandabras spoke his final word, the sealing word of Areni that would proclaim his heir. ‘To the Strongest!’ The king shouted the phrase from his bed and passed from the world.

  It was not long after before his sons divided up his kingdom, and prepared to make good on their father’s request. To the Summer Isle, Badabran retreated with his mother as regent, for he feared his brother would attempt to overthrow him, before going at each other’s throats. Calto was taken by the oldest, and wisest of the bastards, Thyngen, born from a northern courtesan in his father’s employ. To Melos, Arioto the Black, fairest and kindest of the bunch, decided to rule as poet and singer, rather than an iron-fisted lord. Though his people did not grow a mighty army, they relied instead on their wit and word, cunning diplomats and shrewd tacticians. To the Comet, Nasirian, the runt of the lot, and cruelest in nature. He was the weakest in physical strength, making up for it with a great mind, prone to all manner of evil-minded perversions of malice and passion. The smaller islands were likewise divided, and given to lords loyal to their respective princes.

  The coming war, known as the War of Four Brothers, did not last long, consisting of a few naval skirmishes and small scouting battles, for none of the brothers wished for an escalation, save for Nasirian. Nasirian, in the Winter Palace of the Comet, brewed away in his laboratories, forging disease and pestilence like Beelzus herself. He spawned from his dark dungeons, Wither-Eye, a disease which rots away the brain and eyes, leaving hollow husks of flesh. Nasirian’s master plan began, and he sent rats infested with the disease on three trading ships, one traveling to each of his brothers’ holds. But by luck or the gods, each ship sunk in a terrible storm, and even further, the disease spread through the Comet itself. Soon the whole population of the Comet was dead. The three remaining brothers declared two laws, white peace, and that none may enter the waters or land of the Comet, for fear of spreading the disease.

  In the Isle of the Comet, nothing now grows, and the rock, once gray, now has turned black. It sits as a place told in the stories to keep children in order, from the Areni Isles, to even the northern tip of Yennen, for no child wishes to be shipped to the black island. There are rumors some still live there, for sailors who pass it swear by all the gods they see strange figures wallow on the shoreline. Such things are only rumors, for the disease took all life, and now, it seems, it may have brought it back.

  For decades, an uneasy peace has remained amongst the heirs of the original brothers, kept away from war for fear of the impact on trade and their personal safety. It is a land ripe for the claiming, a son of Bandabras who could take up the name his ancestors once claimed, not as a principality, but as a whole kingdom.

  Ritter, the Land of Strong Castles and Fair Maidens

  To the east of Lorine, nestled in the heartland of Yennen, the noble knights of Ritter rule the land which teems with mild weather and abundant game. Founded years ago by the Knight King Frederick the Red, they rule as a rigid and immobile structure, the peasantry tied to land as the subjects to their local lords.

  Upon their sixteenth birthday, each son is given an oath, the Oath of Sickle, or the Oath of Sword. The Oath of Sickle is reserved for the common folk, who vow upon their life to uphold and shepherd the property of their lord and to answer the call to war as levy if need be.

  Oath of the Sickle

  I solemnly vow, humble son of Ritter

  Upon my life and blood and all those before and after me

  That my back shall bear the burden of my lord

  With all my strength and will, I shall defend him

  With healthy bellow or dying breath

  This I solemnly vow upon my life and blood

  The Oath of Sword is for the sons of a lord, upholding the values on which their nation was built. Here it is revealed that the oaths are less servitude and more contract, as both parties are obliged to the defense of others.

  Oath of the Sword

  I solemnly vow, noble son of Ritter

  On my father’s sword and name

  To protect my folk, as they protect my holdings

  My life is no longer my own to bear

  It is in the will of my king that I live or die upon the sword

  This I solemnly vow upon my sword and name

  As I rise a knighted man

  The Warriors of Trundor

  Trundor’s Hunt

  Before the time of man and elf, when all lay barren on the earth, Trundor, son of Domovoi, lord of the hearth, and Veria, of fertility, knelt before his great-grandfather, Loden, and requested to fill the empty lands with creatures worthy of hunting. He spoke saying, ‘Father-God, your ancestors have created
such an empty land, do Cinder and Kryn not see the agonizing waste of it all? Give me dominion over but the brainless things, so that I might fill this world with rich life, worthy of your praise!’ Loden agreed, and Trundor filled the earth with great and powerful beasts, such as dragons, behemoths, and great sea monsters able to consumed entire oceans in a single drink. Trundor was fickle, and became bored with the solitude of his hunt, and, taking the heartiest of soil, he could find in the world, crafted a people to kill by his side. Thus, the Thyrs people entered the world. A folk unlike man or elves, with brutish features and often slow wits. Green-skinned and savage eyes, they came into being at the Irgorian Wastes, a land harsh as the Thyrs themselves. The Thyrs became known as the pioneers, establishing the first settlements in the world, all the while hunting in the service and glory of their master.

  When they had slain a vast number of beasts throughout the world, the Thyrs diminished, their lord once again had turned fickle and bored, now only occupying himself with eat and drink in his great hall, his people were neglected. The Thyrs turned to one another for sport, hoping to please their master through a sacrifice of blood upon the field of battle, and yet their master still ignored them like a child bored of a toy. Their numbers grew ever fewer as their wars escalated from small squabbles between warbands to full-scale battles pitting the whole of their race against each other. Their shamans and priests knew that their god had abandoned them, and so, the few of the Thyrs that remained from their brutal killings were called back to their ancestral land.

  This land is now known as Brynbor, the last hold, in their tongue, where the few Thyrs that survived now wait in a wasteland for their master’s return when the Thyrs shall once again hunt the great beasts of the world by the side of their master. In the present day, they exist as somewhere fewer than one thousand, and each young pup raised in the tribe is sent out into the green world, where they must hunt a great beast as their ancestors once did, as their rite of passage into adulthood.

  The Folk of the Forest

  The final creation of Trundor was to be the ones known as the Unseen Ones or Awaerian in elvish. They were forged from union between the two visages of man and beast. The noblest of these races, the Centaurs, once ruled over the hills of Midland, traveling in great stampeding herds, hunting down Wisent that grazed freely in the land. To the same effect, Satyrs and their kin made fruitful farmsteads and thrived throughout the north save in the unforgiving cold of Belfas.

  Once this rural folk held council with Azrael and even supported his claim in the north. The Awaerian helped the servant of Crassus Baal, to reclaim their territory lost to the kingdoms of men. Casting down the shrines to Trundor, Azrael brought the Herd of Trundor nearly into his master’s clutches. Pine, lord of the east of Ithon, led a coalition of loyalists to Trundor, sacking the camps and huts of any conspiring with Azrael. At the end of the civil war, a quarter of Trundor’s wild people remained, and they could not rouse strength to fight anymore. For centuries, the Awaerian have stayed in their forest, not even the cleverest rangers of Midland can catch sight of the elusive folk.

  Trundor’s Last Creation

  Again, for the third time, Trundor grew bored with his creation, and so he said to himself, “Let me go where no man, elf, beast, or Thyrs, can survive, there I will make a truly mighty people.” So Trundor went north of Yennen, to a continent named Vaal, where the summers were colder than the winters of the south.

  Taking full oak trees, he molded giants, the Vaal. Rugged faces, and long beards which reached to their bellies, they were closest to the image of dwarves, save in height. They cultivated the cold fields of Vaal, and built many drinking halls and walled burgs. Their eyes were set on the south, to the place of green field and fatted cattle. The Vaal came in longships, sowing discord and sorrow in the hearts of men. From High Hold, an ancient citadel carved from the largest mountain in Vaal, the kings rule their sworn fiefdoms.

  For hundreds of years, the Vaal have raided the coastline of Belfas, taking what they please when they please. Now their horns have stayed unused for near a decade, and all hold their breath in frightened anticipation of what is to come.

  The Lands Where None Dare to Sail

  The Expedition East

  In Baudoin’s final years as ruler of Erastrius and Yennen, he took a small vessel, crewed by one hundred souls, and sailed east of his home island. He named the waters there the Greendawn Sea, for the sun’s rising appeared to turn the whole ocean a gorgeous shade of green. Not much was recorded, save that naming, for when Baudoin returned, he came back pale as a ghost, with only himself on board the expedition ship. All his crew had vanished, and he refused to give any word on the matter.

  After Baudoin’s death, however, his personal journals were discovered, where had a kept a log of his journey. They had come by a peninsula bearing a single gray tower, which stood proud and somewhat alien in the green shoreline. It appeared purely black as they saw it, for the sun was rising directly behind it; thus, Baudoin named it the Tower of the Void. Next, the crew passed along the southern coast of this strange land, where they saw a charred coastline, which they named the Scorched Shore. They were filled with an ominous dread at these portents, for they had yet to see a single inhabitant of this strange country.

  The crews’ hearts sank as they passed by a third warning, a set of statues set along the shore, fifty times the size of average men, crumbled and half standing, stoic faces still recognizable. Baudoin’s final entry discusses his contact with the folk of this land, in a city known as Yosel. The people there dressed in loose garb of bright colors, and they wore stones in their beards as well as jewels in their ears. They called themselves the A’Rik, and many revealed teeth of black stone as they smiled at their guests.

  Baudoin was given supplies, and his men set off deeper into the land, where the forests grew as thick canopies of vines and messes of living things. Baudoin describes how the vines seemed to lunge at his crew with claws and thorns, and how the birds’ peaceful songs turned into eerie and sour notes as they passed. That is the final entry, with nothing else to help his court understand, Baudoin’s legacy became the stuff of gossip. Many claimed he had killed his crew, and hoarded a great treasure for himself. Others, that he made a pact with an evil spirit of that land, bargaining his life, for the life of his crew. More still believe he was attacked by the A’Rik he described and was simply the soul survive. None of these claims have been verified, for none who have sailed east since have returned.

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  About the Author

  Peter is a current student at the University of San Diego. The Sword to Unite was Peter’s senior thesis, in which he researched the mythology from the cultures of the Anglo-Saxons and Celtic peoples, as well as the classic legend of King Arthur. Beginning with a simple map on white paper, Peter built the world of the novel over the course of nearly two years. More art and poems on the world of Yennen can be found on the book’s official website, theswordtounite.com, where the author discusses elements of fantasy and the various cultures of his own fantasy world.

  Copyright

  The Sword to Unite

  Written by Peter J. Hopkins

 
Executive Editor: Michael A. Wills

  This story is a work of fiction. All the characters, organizations, locations, and events portrayed in this story are either the product of the author’s imagination, fictitious, or used fictitiously. No claim to the trademark, copyright, or intellectual property of any identifiable company, organization, product, or public name is made. Any character resembling an actual person, living or dead, would be coincidental and quite remarkable.

  The Sword to Unite. Copyright © 2017 by Peter J. Hopkins. This story and all characters, settings, and other unique features or content are copyright Peter J. Hopkins. Published under exclusive license by Digital Fiction Publishing Corp. Cover Image Adobe Stock: Copyright © 106486740. This version first published in print and electronically: December 2017 by Digital Fiction Publishing Corp., LaSalle, Ontario, Canada. Digital [Science | Fantasy | Horror | Crime | Romance] Fiction and their logos, and Digital Fiction Publishing Corp and its logo, are Trademarks of Digital Fiction Publishing Corp.

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