With Blades and Flames: Awakening

by David Csontos

  “I am not your father which means, I don’t need to behave like one. And just to say I don’t care what happens to you. I just need to deliver you to someone” So it wasn’t the woman!

  “Who is it that would want to meet with me so eagerly? You did not tell me so far, so tell me now!”Agaroth have let go of the boy and started walking out.“I don’t need to. You are going to find out anyway when the sun rises. Don’t make me come back!” and walked out. Well, this was worse than what I have expected.There wasn’t much to do. He kept walking up and down, thinking about what has just happened.“Kirlahad” he whispered it into the darkness. I need to go there. She said that I need to go there. What could it mean? Is that a place which holds the answers? I need to go there. He sat back onto his bed and tried to remember exactly what happened, from the beginning to the end. Every single time he tried make the phenomenon understandable but it didn’t work. All of this was impossible to completely understand. What was that song about?

  Running was the only option, which he already took. He was in a forest, which was covered in white pillow. The trees were frozen with bright outlines around the trunk and leafs, if there were still some left. Around he could only see evergreens and a few bushes that were like small pile of sticks. It was all quiet, until he saw the wolves. They were running towards him with open mouths that contained long fangs. So, he started running. Running was the only option, which he had to take. Though not the best. His legs could not carry him long. It felt like they were no use anymore, and this made it even harder to use them. Soon, they gave up and he fell down into the thick snow with a ‘crush’. Tried to get up but could not make it happen. The wolves were coming closer and closer by the minute, but he could not get up. Tried to pull himself up with his hands. Tried to crawl but did not get far from the snow. Then the wolves came. He closed his eyes and covered his head with his hands to try and at least sustain his body as long as possible. But with his ears he could still hear the footsteps, the growls, anything that they gave out. There was a bit of noise for a moment. It all stopped. It was quiet all of a sudden, just like before. He looked up and to his surprise, the wolves were not attacking. They were standing in a circle all around him. Facing towards him. He looked around and there were a dozen or more wolves just standing there and staring at him. For moments, nothing had happened. No sound, no movement. Then one of the wolves walked out of the circle, towards him. It was a great white wolf that could have been the leader, he thought. It walked to the human and stopped in front of him. Then, it started howling. And with it, every other. As they howled he managed to stand up though his legs were not stone anymore. When the wolves have stopped, the leader had sat down in front of him. But out of nowhere the trees have caught fire and the wolves have ran away. Everything was painted in red. At that moment the snow has started to sink along with him. With much too little effort he sank into the white ice. The last thing he saw is the trees around him also sink into the unknown. The darkness, which he saw as soon as his head was below.

  The Great War

  “Dragons.”, said the father,”Fire breathing monstrous nightmares with teeth like swords. No mortal weapon can kill them. When you see them coming it is too late to escape. Elves, dwarfs, even orcs. Nobody escapes from them. Villages, Castles had burned down because of them. Kings, knights, farmers had lost their lives from them. A dragon always comes when he can smell blood. When… “

  “Father, do dragons really exist?“

  “Yes son, they do...”

  “Did you ever seen one?“

  “No; personally I have never seen one in my life, but my father did, and if you listen quietly, then I might be able to tell you, but just if you don’t stop me while I’m speaking.“, said the father.

  “I won’t. Please continue…” answered the little boy eagerly to hear what the father has to say. He loved bedtimes for only one reason. His father always came to tell him stories about Warlden. The kingdom they had lived in was dangerous, but the small boy loved it. Caves, dragons, elves and mighty dwarfs who live in caves, ‘smithing the finest weapons and armour’ (or at least, that is what they said), it was like a dream come true for him, or would have. Their parents not really allowed him to go anywhere where they can’t see him, because of the danger that he would never be able to hear another bedtime story. When he had free time, he would secretly go out into the back garden, jump over the fence and run to his secret place not far from the woods. The place he was going to was a little river. The water in it was as clear as the sky itself. The boy loved to stay here for a couple of minutes breathing slowly and admiring the water itself.“Where does the river stop?”he always used to ask himself.“When I grow up, I will travel all the way to the end of it.” In the first weeks that was his goal; then slowly it became his dream. It is useful to know that Warldenis a dangerous place to live. Many-many people, elves and other creatures had died because of believing that there is nothing out there to hurt them. So that is why the parents are so afraid of letting the boy away. They love him with all their hearth, and little boy knows that too.“All right then.”said the father“My father was a man who wasn’t interested in anything else except farming. He grew grain for the king himself, so you would expect him to be full of himself, but no. My father was an honest man. He never lied, never stole and never left my mother, always worked as hard as he could to provide food for me and my brother. The day…”

  “Father, you never told me about your brother. Did you liked him?”

  “If you stop me again son, I swear to all the thirteen gods that I won’t be telling you any kind of stories‘til the moon doesn’t turn around!”

  “I am sorry father. Please tell me more! I was just curious about why you didn’t told me anything about your brother.”

  “That is because he died a long time ago.”

  “Really? How?”

  “You should decide about which of my family members I shall tell you about. Dou you remember of our saying? One night, one story. Decide quickly because we do not have much time left!“

  “I would like to hear about your father please!”

  “A farmer was about to plant the seeds when a big shadow came across him. The shadow was as big as our house, and as wide as thirty men next to each other. When the old man looked up he have seen it. It was a dragon. Its scale was gold. Gold as the finest jewels of the crown. The farmer got hypnotized by it. It is true that he was the most honest man in our village, but the poor fellow has never ever seen any kind of gold or diamond. His money was his wheat. So when the dragon flew by he was astonished by it. The dragon did some circles around our farm then it started to fly towards castle.”

  “Father. The man. He was your dad wasn’t he?“, asked the son waiting for the answer which he already knew before he would even ask it.

  “Yes; it was him, he stood there until all the shops closed, waiting, hoping to be able to catch a small blink of the gold dragon again, but eventually he had to let go of it and return home. He told me and my brother every night about this. About how the gold dragon had appeared and disappeared out of nowhere.“, explained the father. He didn’t want to allow somebody to see him broken, but he couldn’t do anything about the first tear. It is only one tear but it was too much for him.“Goodnight son.“ He and his father had too many happy memories together.

  “Dad, was that the dragon that attacked everyone in the castle, and started the war of flaming skies?”

  “That is another story for another night. Goodnight son.”

  A bit sadly but eventually the boy had said goodnight to the father. He knew nothing about the Great War except that it was bloody. Everyone talked about it as bloodiest war that Warlden has ever seen.

  The Great War happened ten years ago when the golden dragon had killed the king. The warlords, all the twelve of them became so angry about this that every one of their people had started to try and kill every single dragon that ever showed its face. They have travelled far into the wildern
ess but never came back. Nobody survived who tried to encounter with the dragons. Then, after hundreds of people’s lives lost, the warlords had finally realized that only if they work together could stand a chance kill these predators. It should have worked out pretty well, but the warlords slowly started to turn against each other. Each one of them thought that they are lot better than the others, and had gone on their own path. While they were fighting, more people had died in battles, and more people started to do theft. It was chaos in north, south, west, and even in the east. Everyone was scared of the dragons. When the warlords have stopped fighting they have found out about their homeland. Rotten like an apple left out on the sun in summer, and because there were no one to blame, they started to blame each other for it. Since then they haven’t spoken to each other. The warlords’ hatred have spread across their people. Everyone had hated each other. Everyone became corrupt. They called this battle the ‘flaming skies’ because there were so much fire breathing and war that the sky itself was on flame. So many crops had burned up that there were barely any food left for the mothers and their children.

  “I think that you should know how my father died because I believe you are old enough to hear it”continued the next night“The poor old farmer. When everyone started to steal from the others, it was the farmer’s house they were first after. Everyone knew that the farmer had a secret room full of wheat. Even their neighbour was after their food. Ferdinand, had only gone for a few minutes to change his clothes after work, when he heard a loud scream which was his son’s. When Ferdinand ran down, he have seen that his house was full of people from their village trying to take his stuff away. He didn’t care, the only thing that cared him is to try and find his family.“Aaaaaaaaah”, another loud scream. The farmer had ran out to the street and have seen his family being taken away by three men. He ran after them, luckily he always carried a knife with himself when he did farming and the knife was now in his hand ready to kill. Ferdinand had run up to the first man, who was carrying his wife. He took the dagger and pushed it into the other man’s neck. Then, he ran up to the other two man, but for his sake they heard him kill one of their mates so they took out their knife too and turned around.“Just let my family go, please! They have nothing to do with this!”shouted Ferdinand. He hoped they let his two child go but it was foolish of him to think about that. He took the dagger and pushed it into the man’s leg which was to the right. The man dropped his son, but the other one was still imprisoned in the hands of someone who was ready to kill him. The man was holding the dagger front of the boy’s neck, showing that Ferdinand cannot do anything unexpected because his son’s life depends on it. The little boy had started to cry.“Don’t worry son. Everything is going to be all right.”Said the farmer trying to calm his son down.“Don’t worry, everything is going to be all right. Daddy is going to save you. We are going to go back to our house, and I am going to tuck you in your bed and tell you a story.“

  “Oh, you just think you are going to do that, but the truth is…how much would you think they would pay for your son?”said the man. In that moment the father stepped forward and had cut down the man’s hand, pulled his son free.“I allow nobody to hurt my family, nobody!”, and then Ferdinand had cut the man’s throat, turned around and walked forward to his family, but he just didn’t realized that the man he stabbed on the leg had just stood up behind him. It was too late to warn him, the man was too close and pushed his dagger into Ferdinand’s back. With his last breath he turned around and stabbed the man right through his hearth. They both fell down, and never stood up again. Ferdinand’s last words were“I love you” to his family.

  Chapter 7: With a pride or without a heart

  Arkain had woke up to the whistling and cracking of the house that was caused by the enormous wind outside. Through small holes around the window the wind have managed to creep in while whistling away giving out high pitched rackets. Outside the house it was blasting at the walls and roof making the fairly weak wooden house crackle and clatter. Once, it even managed to move it a bit. This instigated his deep slumbering to end and lock its entrance. Thinking that he is eventually going to need to wake up, he sat up and looked out the window. There were not many people outside. Barely anyone would dare to walk out in this weather and rarely anyone would be awake. The only people that could be seen were two man trying to stay upright. They have seemed to be hurrying down the street but later the pair disappeared. When he looked up neither the moon nor the sun could be seen.“What is Kirlahad?”It was dark all around and even the candles had been blown away by the wind that was raging outside. Even most of the shadows have been wiped. With little to do Arkain had to lie back down and try to go back to sleep. Which did not work. He tried to imagine the place. He woke up once, it is sure as hell that he could not go back. So he just remained there looking at the ceiling. Sometimes thinking but sometimes just staring. Eventually the dark, and rough surface have captured his imagination. The small splits have turned into rivers and the bumps turned into hills. The holes turned into caves and the shadows had become roads. Long roads that lead across and everywhere depending where you want to go. There were great cities, small towns, fortresses, and secrets. More secrets than you could ever imagine.“Arkain! Get up!”shouted Agaroth and knocked on the door loudly to wake the boy up. In no time, he jumped out of the bed and stood in front of him.“Follow me”continued the traveller and walked downstairs. Behind him was Arkain marching. Next to the door the woman was standing looking at them.“Are you already going?”she asked with a tone to which you could simply not tell if it was glad or sad. But the man did not say anything. It was only Arkain who tried to say goodbye and got a hug instead.“Be careful out there wherever the road takes you” Then she sent him on his way, out into the world. Even if the weather was bad. The sun was coming up that is true. But it was also raining. The small raindrops were smashing loudly against the ground and wood. Again, there weren’t many people around, more likely they were in some kind of a shelter, protected. The ones that were unfortunate enough to be here had mostly been running and speeding to their intention. Not considering this at all Agaroth and Arkain had been only walking.“Where are we going?” asked Arkain after a series of considerations about their objective.

  “You see that citadel on the top?”

  “What on earth are we going to do there?”

  “We are going to be there soon, and you’ll see it yourself”answered the man hurryingly. The massive stronghold have left Arkain with an open mouth. Big windows that looked towards the sky. Long towers that have stretched until they could not with what looked like very small gargoyles or stone spikes on the top and sides. It had six towers counting the small one in the middle that was a lot wider and did barely have anything on it. The structure was big and had a small other structure connected to its wall. The connected building could not handle any towers or big windows but was still respected amongst the townsfolk. It had a few windows, and a small spire that had holes in it. When Arkain and Agaroth got out from the town the dirt ground have started to fade into bright stone. Then, a big wall with iron gates have welcomed them that had two guards guarding on the other side. Both of them were standing under a wooden roof that was linked into the wall. Each of them had an iron spear which they got ready when the two had walked up to them.“What you want?”asked the one on the left hand side. Agaroth walked up to them and grabbed a paper from somewhere in his pockets and raised it up, so the two guards could see it. They nodded and opened the gates with a clank, and crickets. As soon as they have stepped through it was closing. The traveller have hurried across the big paved grounds and across a bridge which below had a river running through the entire city. Arkain looked down to see the water blazing across. It was very quick and if someone would have fallen into it, he would have been carried away easily. But then the boy realized that he was a bit behind and ran back to Agaroth, who then later walked up onto a long and wide staircase that was leading to the citadel. Instea
d of going into the main building he led the boy into the smaller one next to it. Inside there was a great big hall with the statue, to which red rugs were leading. On the sides there were a few benches, one of which Arkain had to sit down.“Listen to me. You are going to stay here unless someone comes out for you. And thanks for saving my life back there” said Agaroth and walked out, leaving the boy behind.

  “Wait, where are you going?” Did he actually just leave me here? Agaroth walked out and the entrance was closed and locked from the outside. He ran away?When he tried to find someone else to see that he did not just go mad he failed, he could not detect any sign of movement or sound except the rain. There were a few candles burning below the statue, here and there that had given light to the entire building surprisingly. For a while Arkain was looking around like this, spending time in any way possible, but when an old man was seen to be walking towards him he stood up. It was a man in red clothing hurrying towards the boy, and when he got there only said a few words. Even though it was very quiet he still spoke even quieter which made him hard to understand. But Arkain managed to pick out a few words such as“follow”and“there”. Nonetheless it was enough to determine that he needed to follow him. So when the man started to walk, he was closely next to him, not speaking a word. The priest like man have lead him into the main building via long corridors and staircases. Then, up to the second floor, only to be brought down to the first one again. When they have finished with the labyrinth like passages they have ended up at an even bigger hall than what the one before was. But this time it had small iron gates leading down into nowhere. Without hesitation they have entered, and took the stairs that was leading down. When both of them got to the bottom, a circular like hall has welcomed them with torches on the sides and kind of like a stage to which there was a thick plain railing on the side facing towards a chair in the middle. From the wide balustrade you could not see who was behind it unless the person decides to stand up onto a crate-like stage which there was three of them all differed in height. The middle one was the tallest, the left one was the shortest and the right one was the one between. But do not believe that this hall was empty, because there were a lot of other priest-like beings standing on the cold stone around the stage. Most of them wore a hood, some of them nothing. But they were still talking to each other, and when Arkain arrived, whispering. The men that showed the boy where to go now pulled out his sword from his belt to which he replied with a“What are you doing?!”and got an answer like“Sir, you cannot be here with your weapons, please give them to me and sit down”