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Sword's Edge


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Author: Bob Childers
Website: Braincube Records

Soul Escape

Part One: The Reckoning

The smoke-filled sky softly billowed off the night air. The horizon had quickly stood high and suffocated the red sun. The air was muggy and strong with the stench of the dead. The sound of marching steel and blades being wiped on the lifeless bodies that littered the battlefield engrossed the sordid air. The setting red sun silhouetted a lone man standing before a sword stuck in the ground. Beneath the hood of the blood stained armored helmet, red eyes glared with a satisfied spark engulfing their retina. The man signaled for the army to continue. Another armored man approached him.

"Lord Caine, " The other man, a soldier, bowed. "Your orders my lord?"

The dark figure looked down to the man and tore his own helmet from his head as he boomed in his loudest voice. "You will not stop until the Ghul heathens are pushed back. You will push them back into the spiny confines of their muggy castles. Then you will besiege them until they starve to death." He paused to see if the orders were sinking in. "Bring the prisoners to my keep. I will deal with them. Do not fail me."

He turned on his heel and headed back up the hill towards his large black steed, waiting patiently as it grazed on blood-stained grass. Throwing his foot up into the stirrups, he turned to look back over the carnage. Then, he mounted the steed whose nostril flared with as much hate as the dark one. With a violent neigh, the horse galloped off towards the sunset with its rider. The soldier did not riseuntil the dark one disappeared in the distance. Quickly, the soldier moved to the front of the gathered army and began barking orders.

###
"So it has begun, " said the dark robed man through his sharp pointed beard.

The ball of crystal before him swirled with images of the dead and soldiers milling about them, harvesting the weapons and armor still intact. The image in the magick ball faded and a new image filled it. Lord Caine riding hard towards the tall spires of a keep came into view.

"My greatest warrior--all will depend on your success, Caine." The old man closed his eyes and looked up mumbling in a strange and garbled dialect. The air around the old sorcerer stirred and the pages in the old tome on the stand began flipping, settling on a single page as the man of power looked down with a grim smile. The page was entitled 'The Reckoning'. The air settled around the old man and his robes fell smooth at his side.

"So it begins."

###

The sounds of the small spring trickling down the ravine comforted the man who sat half-dressed in bright shining armor. The light of the dark green moon, Terra, reflected off his treasured armor like a giant emerald basking next to the water. The man's dark deep blue eyes were pools reflecting the light as much as the spring did. He gently skimmed the whetting stone along the battle fretted blade of his crown-inscribed sword. Suddenly, around his neck, the symbol of Fae began to glow. Alarmed the man scrambled to his feet and began hastily donning his armor. The symbol pulsed brightly with pious light. His heart raced as he slipped the last bracer in place and called to his mount. Out of the shadows calmly strode a large white steed, also arrayed in armor inscribed with symbols of Fae. The man mounted and kicked his spurs into the flanks of the magnificent mare. They darted off into the darkness and towards the gesticulating sensation that replenished the symbols.

###

"Lord Pherimus, we must send for Tristan at once," the blue robed man said sitting at the large half moon shaped table.

An old man decorated in flowing white robes of silk and wool turned to him., "It has been done. I have sent for the great Tristan. The time has come, my brothers, for us to stand against the dark hordes of Tiberon." He turned to face the moon-shaped table. "Prophecy is turning full fold and it is time to prepare for our calling."

The man turned to the mural on the wall again. The mural depicted a man on a shining steed wearing bright armor, bearing a sword of white flame. He fought with another man, mounted on a black horse, wearing black armor, bearing a sword that seemed forged from black steel. The two images floated in the star-filled sky above millions of oddly-shaped lights, very close together, as if someone had managed to stack a hundred houses on top of one another. Odd objects made of steel with wheels of black were depicted as following one another across darkened flat paths. Each of the objects had two lights at their front, like bright eyes watching the battle taking place above. None of the great wizards gathered in that tower knew the whole meaning of the mural, except that they were to perform the ceremony that would make this prophecy come to pass. All of the robed men began to gather in a circle in the candle lit chamber. The whiter-robed wizard opened a tome on a stand in the center of the room and began the chant.

###

In the distance, Tristan could see the tower. It pulsated with bright light as he forced his way into the keep gates without stopping to meet with the guards. His steed had thick froth pouring from its maw. After winding his way through the cobbled streets of the outer wall, Tristan tossed himself up straight on the saddle. He could no longer see the tower, but he could feel its light pulsing in rhythm with the symbol hanging over his chest.

"Move!" he yelled.

A peasant darted out of his path and he galloped by hurriedly. Bystanders looked about in awe the great knight ripped his way through the gathered plebeians. Soldiers milled about in surprise as they took up their arms and fell in behind Tristan, curious regarding his urgency. As they rounded the gardens, each of their hearts pounded like a drum as the soldiers saw the radiance pulsating from the great Tower of Light . Tristan pounced past the guards and pulled the double doors open, not pausing to shut them. The men following poured through the door as Tristan made his way up the long winding stair well. The sound of boots clambering clumsily behind him, he leapt two or three stairs at a time.

The door to the chamber came open as Tristan walked in and went to his knee with his forehead on his sword hilt. "You have summoned me great wizards, what is your bidding?"

The soldiers stopped behind Tristan and looked about with great care as they slowly retreated back down the stairs into the darkness.

"Oh Tristan, the faithful one. We have been waiting for this day to come for many decades. Come stand in the circle, and meet your destiny."

Continued in Part Two: The Flip Side