Talohna Origins- The Northmen

by J D Franx

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  MAP

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Epilogue

  Talohna Origins:

  The Northmen

  by JD Franx

  Talohna Origins: The Northmen

  Author JD Franx

  Copyright (c) JD Franx

  Registered Copyright 2019

  Cover Illustration and Design (c) Amalia Chitulescu

  www.amaliach.com

  Editing by Bitter Brownie Books

  Kindle design and formatting by Rachel Bostwick

  All rights reserved

  ISBN: 978-0-9953363-4-6

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by means without the expressed written permission from the author. This novel is a work of fiction: names, places, characters, and all events are products of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons. Living or dead, business establishments, or locales is entirely coincidental

  Dedication

  For my readers and fans:

  Many of you have been with me from the beginning when The Legacy was first published nearly three ago now. A lot of you will also pick up this Northmen book as your first introduction to the world of Talohna. To all of you who have shown me your amazing support over the last few years, and for those who have decided to just recently give my books a chance, I thank you. As a way of showing my gratitude, I have compiled a list of Origin stories that many of you are asking to see. Seeing as how the Northmen’s arrival to Talohna ties directly to the events in Kael’s next book, and it was the most asked for origin story, I wrote it first. So, whether you are a new reader, or a devoted fan, these Talohna Origins novels are for all of you who helped make it possible for me to write these stories. Thank you all.

  Chapter One

  “Talohna is only one of many dimensions. It has evolved with the help of magic in a similar fashion to the way technology has affected my Earth. This has made for some interesting similarities and more than a few curious differences, including the events throughout the histories of both Earth and Talohna.”

  --Kael Symes, 6 Years After the Ancients‘ Return

  STEINN FORTRESS, SOKN

  NORTHMAN HOMELAND, HOURS BEFORE THE CATACLYSM

  War, death, and rot hung heavy in the air, but a dozen other problems rested firmly in the front of Engier’s mind. Jarl Engier Striith-Blodd let his hands rest easily on the head of his sheathed war axe and stared out across the valley situated on the northeastern edge of Sokn’s mainland. From the upper ramparts of the fortress below his feet, on this clear, early morning he could see for miles. Though the decrepit state of the buildings and barricades surrounding him scarcely qualified as a fortress, it was the only place to make their stand. Engier snorted at the stupidity of defending the old fort. Even though the people working in the mines far below had spent years trying to make it a home, the fortress was just that. A home, it was no longer a secure fortress. He needed more men to mount a solid defense and whether or not more clans arrived in time to help remained a major concern at the fore front of his mind.

  Shaking his head to clear it merely opened the door for other problems to quickly invade his thoughts. It dawned on him that with the death of the High King and his family several weeks ago, Engier’s Striith-Blodd clan, as it was traditionally known, now held the responsibility of being the oldest and most respected family in all of the Northmen lands. Engier himself wasn’t a traditionalist and most often referred to his own clan as most other Northmen did: The War-Blood clan. It was something that might have to change in the coming days should the clans choose to vote on a new high king. Tradition or not, he would be the favored noble for Sokn’s highest throne. The thought made his head hurt. He prided himself on living up to his family’s namesake for every one of his sixty years, and he still had well over half his life to live, if the gods deemed it so. Having fought in wars and battles since the age of fourteen, he earned a respect from the other clans that bordered on awe.

  It was a good thing too, because he needed to use that influence to call all the northern clans to his command in order to deal with the threat facing his people from across the valley. The threat of rogue magic gone unchecked in Sokn loomed yet again. Engier had fought many rebel magic users over the years, but the fetid approach of death from across the valley was the only threat large enough to warrant uniting all the clans. New and unknown magic had a way of forcing such alliances to be made. With no other choice, he would continue to command the clans until the threat was over and the new magic was understood and controlled, or preferably destroyed, but Engier had no interest in becoming High King. He was a warrior and the High King only fought during times of danger or threat to all Northman people, not in times of trouble for individual clans.

  The Ama Taugr wizard at his side coughed, bringing his mind back to the immediate threat yet again. Drengr Stone-Wise was a loyal friend and the only magic user he would ever trust completely. “I never dreamt the Ama Taugr rebels could raise so many dead in such a short time, especially with so few of the bloodstone runes,” he said, pulling his long blonde hair back into a high ponytail and checking his rune sack in preparation for the upcoming battle.

  Jarl Engier scoffed but deep down he agreed with his clan wizard, the enemy forces had to number close to a thousand. He continued to stare across the valley where the four outcast rebels who controlled the hordes of walking dead were encamped. Thankfully, the large, undead horde was still several hours from the fortress where Sokn’s largest source of bloodstone now resided. Bloodstone the necromancers camped across the valley wanted very badly.

  Like most Jarls in Sokn, Engier was a battle-hardened and grizzled man who had earned and kept his lands through the support and love of his people, his mental and physical prowess, as well as that of his men and women. Deep in thought, he tugged at his braided black beard. Streaks of silver marked the braids, something that only came with the experience of age.

  “Ama Taugr…” Engier snorted at the words even as they left his brain and finished rolling over his tongue. “Magic users cause more trouble than they are worth. The current state of the North is just another example.”

  “Agreed. Taela, all of them.” Though blonde and nearly a foot shorter when standing at Engier’s side, Jarl Brenna Kaesia’s presence was just as prominent as his own, and a matching grunt followed her agreement about the four taela, traitors, each and every one. Such agreements were a rarity between them.

  “Traitors, of that there’s no doubt. They shall be dealt with as such. Jarl Brenna, you have my thanks for answering the call. How many warriors came with you?”

  “Eighty, plus twenty of my High Guard,” she replied. “I sent a missive to the mines at Dragon’s Breath calling for all five hundred men, but it will be at least a week before they arrive. You have my apologies, Jarl Engier. Until we received correspondence from our nobles who survived the attack at the High King’s castle, I believed your missive might have been a battle tactic. A way of drawing my army from the mines.”

  He scoffed at the low number and at the unintended slight. One hundred warriors doubled his forces but still left them seriously outnumbered
against an enemy who proved damn hard to kill during their first engagement. A week would mean a world of difference as almost a thousand of his own men would also arrive by then. “I would never call for your clan to support a Northmen threat as a ruse to take back the opal mines that rightfully belong to my clan. There is no honor in it. Our differences must be set aside for the good of all the Northmen now. We can return to our war later.”

  “That is why I apologized.” she said.

  “Your men are ready?” he asked, changing the subject.

  “They are,” she answered. “But that southwestern wall remains a weak spot.”

  “We have as many men as we can spare standing guard there. Should it collapse, others, including myself, will reinforce their position.”

  “Good,” she said. “Hopefully it won’t come to that. These runecasters seem to cause more trouble for the people of Sokn than any other clan, but this particular group of outcasts are far more insidious. After discovering that the bloodstone gem could be runed for more than just talking to the ancestors...” Brenna paused as a frustrated frown crept across her features. “They killed that boy, Engier, like true cowards. Then they took the stones and papers he was working on for themselves,” she said. Like most young Northmen, Brenna’s emotions were more volatile and much closer to the surface.

  Though she was decades younger and they had been fighting against each other for possession of the fire opal mines below the Dragon’s Breath Keep for months, Engier respected the female Jarl as he would any other noble or warrior. He carefully considered her council on matters of war or politics and not so long ago, when they were rivals, he evaluated every move she made before acting against her.

  “It is certainly possible that they are responsible for his death,” he replied.

  Jarl Brenna persisted with her argument. “A strong Northman, even a boy, does not die from illness. The Ama Taugr at the school have offered us nothing but wizard lies when it comes to his death. The boy was training to learn the creation of runes so he could become a Rynstar, like his father. That placed him in their protection. It is no coincidence that he died shortly after he discovered that bloodstone can be runed to raise the dead.” When the young Jarl lowered her voice, Engier leaned closer. “We rely on those rune stones and the Rynstar smiths to repair the ancestor weapons, as well as to forge anew,” she said. “The wizards’ lies make this problem more complicated than the undead army that gathers below us. You’ve heard the rumors, Engier. We cannot trust the Ama Taugr any longer. They must be dealt with as soon as the undead and the rebels are no longer a concern.”

  Engier glanced down at his axe. It was a true ancestor weapon passed down through his family for many generations. The silver blade coursed with throbbing red and pearl veins of fire opal that gave the weapon a searing hot edge. So much so, that his sheath was also runed in order to protect the axe-blade from harming its owner and those who might brush up against it in passing. But the valuable runestones had another use, it was true. Like Brenna and almost all Northmen, he disliked the Ama Taugr still having access to the runes that wizards used to unleash hellstorms of savage magic like the Skeyth of old. For several hundred years since the Rune Wars and subsequent banishment of the Skeyth that resulted in the creation of the Ama Taugr, wizards were given limited access to the gemstones or completed runes that were needed to harness their magic. Since the murder of the High King and his family, most Northmen now agreed that even this limited access should be revoked.

  Whenever the wizards rebelled or were given free rein, the world of Sokn found itself in the state it was in now, with the united clans fighting against the wizards and the deadly magic they controlled. This time it was four necromancers and their army of walking dead that marched on Sokn’s lone bloodstone mine.

  A chunk the size of a merchant’s cart had been extracted less than a week ago in the hope of destroying all of the supply within the mine. However, without the research from the young Rynstar, Engier’s own wizard and others who made the attempt were unable to damage, let alone destroy the massive stone.

  Engier rubbed his throbbing temples and shook the pointless thoughts from his mind. “Agreed. They will be dealt with in time,” he finally muttered. “The young Rynstar was from my village, Jarl Brenna. I know his family well, especially his father. Aro is one of Sokn’s most experienced Rynstars and he has kept my axe whole during many a war, but ultimately his child’s death does not matter to us in the here and now.”

  “No?”

  “No,” he insisted. “We will investigate the boy’s death later but for now, his discovery is all that matters. All we know for sure is that when properly marked, the bloodstone rune also raises the dead. When the High King called the Jarls to vote on the matter, we agreed unanimously that all of our current bloodstone supply and any found in the future must be destroyed. That means the KunSkyn’A Festival will no longer be celebrated by our people. Never again will we able to seek wisdom from those who came before us. These rebels have cost us the means to summon our ancestors, and it is a part of the Festival of Knowledge many of our people celebrate, whether high noble and royalty or commoner. Having the ability to commune with our ancestors has kept the knowledge and history of our people alive, up until these events. The Ama Taugr will be taught a lesson for that, I promise you, but after the dead have been returned to their eternal rest and these wizards brought to justice.”

  “My lord,” Drengr interrupted. “It was a small group of Ama Taugr wizards, taela, rebels, who took the last of the bloodstone and the young Rynstar’s research before they fled the Ama Taugr school at Kastali Fortress and perpetrated the attack on the King’s family. I beg you not to punish all of the Ama Taugr at the Skall for the actions of a select few. The Skall is a school, my lords, a safe place for learning and research, but it is also the only home many of those young wizards have ever known. Most are shunned by their own clans and are not welcomed elsewhere in Sokn.”

  Engier studied the man hard. Drengr had served him faithfully for many decades and was the only Ama Taugr he would ever trust completely. Drengr was a son of clan War-Blood first and an Ama Taugr wizard second.

  “We know beyond a doubt that they are responsible for what happened at Savingar Castle, but are you sure that the four acted alone?” Engier asked. “We have to be sure.”

  The wizard nodded with a sigh. “I am. The four acted for their own selfish reasons and definitely not with the Skall Council’s blessing. The attack on the king happened less than two weeks after they fled the school with the last of the bloodstone. That was… What? A week after the vote to destroy all the bloodstone,” Drengr stated. Getting nods from the Jarls, he continued unabated. “They waited long enough after the vote to make sure most of the Jarls and Thanes had left before attacking the High King. They are responsible for all of it, I am certain. This has been many months, if not years in the planning, my lord. The new knowledge of the bloodstone merely gave this particular group of rebels the confidence to put their plans into action. I would think that the attack on Savingar Castle was the easiest way to seed discord among the nobility—”

  Jarl Brenna grunted in agreement. Cutting the wizard short, she turned to Engier. “Anarchy was their goal. It took two days for you and your warriors to fight through the living corpses only to find the High King, his family, and all the castle servants among the ranks of the raised dead. It could have been planned as a diversion, or simply as a way for them to test the rune magic before beginning to grow their numbers of undead in earnest. Ultimately it gave them the time to organize, and to raise their undead army, that is what they needed most. The proof wanders aimlessly across the valley.”

  Engier nodded his head and looked out across the valley from the fortress’ upper catwalk. Though the lowlands were clear of the walking dead that morning, the arrival of the dead and the filthy red mist emanating from them had already begun to poison the land. Blackened grass and patches of darkened brush dotted the valley
floor and larger trees held the brown shade of impending death. Standing between Engier and the overabundance of corrupted earth miles away, were acres of fertile, cropped farmland and fruit orchards. Abandoned by the farmers a day or two earlier for the safety of the fortress, the land was slowly falling victim to the insidious approach of death. Frowning at the devastation already wrought on the valley’s far side, Engier was glad he ordered everyone to pull back to the mine’s fortress in order to protect the citizens of the valley along with the block of bloodstone. It was the only practical choice, leaving the farmers outside the fortress walls would simply add to the army of undead.

  “Dammit,” Brenna cursed lightly. “We had a tough time with the small group we encountered on the way here. It’s going to be hard to win this war when the enemy’s soldiers are incredibly hard to kill and those who do fall are replenished and reinforced by our own fallen after each battle. During the battle, for that matter.” It was a lesson they both learned the hard way during their first, but separate engagements with the rebel necromancers.

  “As did we at Savingar Castle, and that is the crux of the problem, Jarl Brenna,” Drengr Stone-Wise added. Though the wizard was in the employ of Jarl War-Blood, he openly offered advice to both of the allied Jarls. “We experienced the same difficulties at the High King’s castle. The rebels might have been gone, but their lingering magic raised the dead bodies of our own warriors faster than the priests could consecrate the dead.”

  “Yet we cannot afford to lose more warriors while fighting over the bodies of our dead. We need more Ama Taugr, Drengr,” Engier growled. “The few who are loyal to the Northmen. I hate to admit it, but nothing works against the walking dead better than a fire opal in the hands of a runecaster. How long before they arrive?”

  Drengr shook his head. “It will be close, Jarl. They should begin arriving tonight, depending on how many missives made it through the rebel line.”