Pagewalker (36 page)

Written By Christopher Mahood age 15

Stories are told to men after momentous events.

Myths are the same stories but men stop
believing in them.

Legends are the same stories again but the
truth in them has vanished and been forgotten as storytellers
change them for their audience.

Fairy tales are the same stories turned into
children’s bedtime stories at the expense of the men who shed blood
for the telling of them.

Like every story there is a hero. Usually a
strong, well-built man adored by the ladies, respected and looked
up to by the men. This story is different…

Years ago in an ancient land of Dwarves,
Eldar, humans, gargoyles, un-dead and goblins, there was a time of
war and conflict between the four great races of Northland.

Race of Men

A race of many professions, skilled fishermen,
Farmers and Merchants. As a race men were devout to their many gods
and held religious ceremonies very seriously. From the Worship of
Nature by the druids, a mysterious ancient faith to the worship of
the nameless God. A new God in the land followed by more and more
each day. Although as stories tell of constant battles in the
heavens this led to a mirroring in men's hearts. The kingdoms of
men were divided and at war. Only the Great City of Sáann that
worshipped the nameless God stood strong.

Goblins

Race of Slaves, Created by the Eldar they have only
recently discovered freedom, The Eldar were the first race in
Northland and created goblins to do every chore and task for the
elder as they focused on ways to extend life and create buildings
as high as they could build to mark their place in Northland. The
Goblins grew ever weary of the mistreatment and the ban of
religious freedom, As the centuries passed, goblin priests dug into
the earth to unlock a God they could call their own, a foul demon
by the name of “Sal Dest” a manipulative being after nothing more
than to watch the fall of progress, to see a return to a baron
world where peace and darkness were the only scenery. Sal Dest Gave
power to the Goblins, Teaching them to forge weapons and magic deep
in the earth, arming a legion with nothing more than revenge to
fuel them, Disguised as a fight for freedom Sal Dest exacted his
personal revenge on the Eldar that had locked him deep in the core
of the world. The Eldar were caught unaware and suffered greatly at
the hands of their Goblin slaves.

Eldar

The oldest race of Northland. Born with the planet
they shaped the word. They Planted the trees, grew the mountains,
Cleaned the Oceans and blessed the creatures that inhabited all of
them. For a millennia the race of Eldar was an outward race,
striving for the better of everyone, even when Men arrived in
Northland The Eldar aided them in setting camp, teaching them the
art of fishing, farming, livestock and the fine art of trade. Men
However discovered Fire themselves and built industry on top of
that discovery. As time passed men became unruled and passionate.
Religious and jealous. War broke out and engulfed Northland, The
Eldar were powerless to stop it.

After an age the Eldar were sickened by man’s
lack of love for the country side, peaks and rivers that graced
their homes. The Eldar became much more inward, working on self
development and self preservation, vowing to out live every race
and renew the world once all new raced died out.

Gnomes

Of the four main races in Northland Gnomes remained
border-less. They kept themselves to themselves. They were a
peaceful race. They loved nothing more than to brew their own
whiskeys and ales, Compete in wagers and gamble. They were a very
rich race and death often with humans. They were known for the
markets. Every week gnomes would set up markets in human towns and
Eldar cities and sell the beautiful weapons, armour, pottery,
crockery and fine silks that they made.

Over time the Gnomes developed a fine
military. Consisting of pikemen, archers, boar riders and sages.
They would skirmish and expand. Never a threat to anyone but
themselves. Still they grew and flourished without a God to
restrict them….or bless them.

Until the Queen from the Clan of Claw visited
and brought her dark Gods and witchcraft. She corrupted them,
twisted many of them with hate, destroyed their culture through
civil war and tore the race in two. Half stayed and worshipped her
power while the other half set out to preserve their culture and
travelling markets, leaving with no place but the road to call
home.

Sáann and the Clan of Claw

The Great King Sáann ruled the Clan of Claw and was
someday prophesied to be the greatest ruler and hero of all time.
It was also prophesied that he would be the father of the saviour
of Northland.

The Clan of Craft was ruled by Queen Dalton
who was an evil and corrupted mistress of black witchcraft.

She had her heart set on ruling the whole of
Northland, but she did not take action until perfect opportunity
arose.

She had such a blackened hatred for the
living and passionately yearned for darkness to cover the light.
Her obsession of occult and dark magic lead her to the spells of
the dead, in which the underworld would be at her command,
re-animating corpses and enlisting them in her army of unholy
death. It was said that the stench of her legions was the first
thing noticed by all foes, before even the eagles could spot them
on the horizon. The stench of death!

She wanted and waited until the opportunity
came at last to strike!

For years the last of the goblin horde had
put aside their petty squabbles and clan wars over who lay claim to
land, title and what little riches they had. The shaman of the
clans had read omens leading the race to blindly join together. The
Goblin chieftains had set a plan in motion to attempt an almighty
assault on the city of Sáann.

The dark queen was ever aware of the
rumblings beneath the dirt where goblins and foul creatures
plotted, fought and rotted!

She summoned all those she could gather with
promises of shares of lands, riches and power!

She knew that even these aside there was a
uniting hatred of the light. She knew The Goblins would stand at
arms with her awoken gargoyles, The lost, the cast outs,
undesirables and the dead.

Finally the bubbling pot erupted and war was
inevitable.

The battle took place along the city walls.
Without warning or sound the hordes had appeared at the Kings
doorstep! Nothing but a foul stench to give any signal before the
black horns were blown!

The third charge of goblins has almost
breeched over the walls into the city when the front gates of Sáann
opened, revealing to the remaining goblins, two figures dressed in
royal blue capes. The ‘Throne guard’ were revered throughout the
kingdom as proven men.

No man without pure heart, scared hands and
bloodied steel, ever dawned the blue cloak known as ‘Heaven cloth’
A long cloak attached from the rear of the helm draping to the
stone. The Blue and silver tapestry, embroidered onto each cloak,
depict the angel Sif tearing cloth from Heavens throne room and
fashioning cloaks to be given the the bravest of men of Sáann the
highest honour the Gods court would Grant.

The Throne Guard were the Kings greatest
weapon. They stood as a moving was, thought to be impenetrable and
often described as an ocean dock shielding the city from the
sea.

Behind them stood four minor knights wearing
full plated armour and long shields painted with the crests of
their families Houses and Guilds.. The Knights boldly marched out
of the front gates, unwavered, unrelenting and unstoppable. Solidly
striding toward the goblins that had frozen from fear. They had
heard the stories of the Throne Guards, They knew who the Knights
were. They knew the old name they were first given…

They were the Knights of Xill.

Here is an account of the event written by
Sir Duron who was one of the Throne Guards on that day;

I fought my way through the almost endless
hordes of goblins wielding my blade around me, almost carelessly,
forgetting my training as adrenalin took over, all before I
composed myself, severing limbs and body pieces from the dirty
disgusting beasts that can only have come from the pits of the dark
spirit world. My blade felt like it was an extension of my arm as I
slid it through demon and undead flesh, I loved every minute of the
combat. That is what I was born to do it’s what I was trained to do
and now I’m using my skills by working my magic for the freedom of
all humanity.

That’s when I was split up from the others.
A small group of goblin scouts had broken a small hole in the so
called “Unbreakable” walls of my glorious city Sáann, I can still
remember the anger that surged through me that day, I still feel
the pain of abandoning the spirits will. By staying with my group
of bothers I would surely have died so I headed toward the group of
scouts who were starting to climb into the city through the hole he
has made. I dived into the middle of them and started thrashing my
blade around without car for honour or mercy but with anger and
hatred toward these hideous beasts I killed every last one the
scouts and didn’t give a second thought about what I had done
because the first thing that I thought about was the King and Sir
Gladwin. I rushed back toward the front of the city to find my
three fellow Knights dead together. I faced the sky and cursed the
Gods for what they had done. I turned around to see the remaining
few goblins preparing their final assault on my city. I waited for
them to taste my steel and they did. When the final horde ran over
the hill the King ran in front of us and stopped about one hundred
yards in front of me. He was muttering an ancient spell, some kind
of summoning spell. Then Sir Gladwin stood out beside him and a
strange light was formed around the whole city. I knew in my heart
that we were a long way from victory for after the light
disappeared I was ordered to go back to the city and guard the
gates. I did so but as I was walking away I heard a strange hum,
the sound of footsteps. Then I realised who it was as the flags and
helmets of the Queen’s men appeared over the hill. I ran into the
city to gather the troops I lead them out of the gates and into
combat. We fought bravely and victory against the Clan of Craft was
in sight, but then hope faded as the King was struck down by a
group of Craft was chiefs.

My heart faded, as it does now when I think
of the death of my true ruler. Walking corpses dragged their limbs
over his body, over the threshold of my beautiful city, bringing
the stench with them, killing hope with an unfocused death stare
that they had, they were the worst, more than goblins, gnomes,
giants, they were foul, putrid scum, when struck they would arise,
he had little power, no strength but simply sheer numbers, like an
army of ants, smothering and clambering on top of foes suffocating
them slowly.

The kingdom now belongs to the Clan of Claw
and my duty as a Knight of Sáann is over, we now wait for the
second prophecy to be fulfilled as the book says,

“
The son of the beloved will be the
saviour of the land”.

The Queen invaded Sáann and claimed it as her own,
breaking all vows she made to the goblins. Once she sat on the
throne all changed. Her dark witchcraft tainted the halls, The
light stopped shining, the birds stopped singing, the rains came
and all colour was stripped from the Kingdom.

All Love, All hope…

The Queen new of prophecies and welcomed
herself to the city but publicly burning the priests. Tied to
mounds of books she set them alight and promised the same fate to
any who uttered words of ‘false prophecy.’

Her focus then was to wipe the bloodline of
Sáann clean, sever the head from decedants and nail it to the
family tree. She Knew of the boy and kept him as a trophy, a
plaything to be disposed of when she became bored….

However…..the boy was not going to be as
easily disposed of as she had hoped…

Sparks lit up the night sky as the cold steel of the
two swords sliced and collided together making the deafening high
pitched noises of ringing metal. The pitch of knives being
sharpened, of scraping the bottom of a metal pot. The sparks were
like a blacksmith forging new horseshoes on a cold winter
night.

Dertrid’s cloak swished in the wind as he
drove his blade into Samuel’s again and again, he did this, tiring
himself out as he did so. Samuel kept blocking Dertrid’s large
strong overhead swings until his hands and arms were aching with
the pain of the impact Samuel rose up ad Dertrid was bringing down
another vicious blow.

However, before Dertrid had time to follow
through his attack Samuel slid under his legs, letting Dertrid
drive his cold blade straight onto the wall behind him. The
relentless attacks seemed to go on forever. The two were almost
going to collapse from exhaustion when Dertrid kicked Samuel off
the steps of the palace’s main keep. Samuel fell to the stone
cobbled floor with an almighty thud and the sound of metal and wood
dropping, Samuel’s blade slide across the court yard floor and was
stopped by a large keg of ale. Dertrid slowly descended the stairs
towards the lifeless looking Samuel who lay in a small puddle of
blood which seemed to be trickling from his back. The wound must
have been caused by his armour nipping his skin on impact with the
ground as he fell. Dertrid walked over to Samuel and poked his tiff
looking body a few times with his blade. By the looks of things
Dertrid has finally killed Samuel. Dertrid turned around and
started to climb the stairs to the keep when he heard an almost
demon like, deep breathing. He turned around to see Samuel standing
in the middle of the courtyards looking straight at him, they both
stared into each other’s eyes for a short time until Dertrid
quickly glanced over to Samuel’s blade on the other side of the
court yard. Samuel spotted Dertrid’s quick glance and turned toward
the blade. He started walking toward it, Dertrid jumped off the
stairs and landed in a large flowerbed almost flattening all the
roses that the royal gardeners had spent their lives growing. He
ran toward Samuel’s blade to try and get it before Samuel could but
he was too late. Samuel had dived and grabbed the blade before
Dertrid had to time to do the same. When Dertrid came to a halt
Samuel back flipped and spun around slicing his blade just short of
Dertrid’s eye but leaving a large gash on his left cheek. Dertrid
fell back in pain, he touched the wound but when he looked at his
hand it was worse than he had expected. Blood was all over his hand
and it was dripping onto his shirt. Dertrid stood up and looked at
Samuel with a glare that could easily kill the wildest bore. He
slowly bent down and picked up his blade, not taking his eye off
Samuel as he did so Samuel was standing in the natural fencing
position, blade forward, legs slightly bent, body tuned to the side
and his left arm in the air behind his head. Dertrid did the same
but as their blades touched Dertrid put both hands on his sword’s
hilt and bashed Samuels blade out of the way leaving Samuel’s chest
but he ducked out of the way and only got his cloak caught by the
blow. As he stood up he realised that Dertrid had pinned him to the
wall but before Dertrid had time to draw his dagger from the small
sheath in his boot, Samuel kicked his hard in the gut punching him
back and causing him to lose his balance. Dertrid fell to the cold
cobbled floor as Samuel jumped on top of him hitting him until
Dertrid was sure he had broken every bone there was to break.
Samuel stood up and spat on Dertrid, ‘I will not kill you now, I
will do it tomorrow when the whole city will be watching’ he said,
dragging Dertrid toward the stalls in the city centre. Dertrid was
locked into the stalls. His vision went very blurry and then he
lapsed into unconscious darkness.