Plague Wars - Foreword and Prologue

 Plague Wars - Foreword

I will do my best to keep this relatively short. It has been a long journey and I am eager to get straight to the action. However, I feel it is important to state my intent for this story and explain my inspirations. 

Those who know me, know that I am a massive history fan. Its a borderline obsession. Whenever I have time and I am not working on this project, I am often painting models to a documentary or reading about one time in history or another. Antiquity is by far my favourite time period. Roman and Greek are represented in a great measure and take the center stage, at present. However, other cultures are have their place. Really, any pre and early gunpowder civilizations could one day make their way into my stories. I find grounding a fantasy world in real cultures a truly magical way to bring realism into a world. History also has endless stories to inspire and influence - it is often better than the fiction. 

Mythology. Just like history, the mythologies created by our ancestors is a beautiful thing, especially for fantasy. The mythology in our the World that you are about to be introduced to is a meld of many. Obviously, there are some Greek and Roman influences but also Catholic and Christian as well. Other's beyond that will earn their spots as more and more cultures are introduced. 

What good fantasy story would be without Knights? Well I have some of those too and they play a central part. The Champions (as I call them) are my delivery vehicle to keep the story going. In any story, connections between the characters and settings must be made and what better way to connect those things then an order of ultimate badasses who work at the fore and behind the scenes to ensure a nations prosperity? They also go by another name, Demons. Just like the European knights, their own perspectives and those around them differ. 

These are just some influences, there are many many more and they all play their part in making this story you are about to (hopefully) enjoy. That being said, in any media I consume I want to dig deep on my own and explore. So these surface level inspirations are all I am going to give for now. I want my audience to do the same. Everything you need is given to you and it is up to you to put the pieces together.

Lastly, I will leave you with an image depicting two central character's you are about to read about: Talinnius and Cordia (make sure you click on the image to enjoy a larger scale!). Some of you might recognized the gentleman on the left from a previous post, he is Talinnius, where as the woman on the right pointing the sword is Cordia. Again, you will get to know them quite well in the coming days.

Please tell me what you think. Feedback and sharing this project means the world to me. It is endlessly engaging to even get one comment and I cannot express my gratitude to those who take the time to read an enjoy what I have to write. 

Without further delay, I hope you enjoy the first part of Plague Wars!

Plague Wars - Prologue

I

        Dark Clouds swallowed the moon’s light from the land. Wind exhaled like a breath and the clouds released their fury. Rain lashed the world below. It was a savage onslaught that only added to the scene’s misery. Hot anguish within the churning bodies - pressing together - was drawn away by the freezing downpour, becoming a steaming haze just above their heads. Bright electricity rolled through the clouds at first, before slashing across the land like a whip. The heat from blue-white arcs erased the dead and melted living flesh without discrimination.
        At the battle’s center, a group stood unmolested by the sky’s supernatural onslaught. Their armour was darker than the night’s jet. When the lightning flashed, it reflected off their skeletal faces - revealing sharp fanged teeth in rictus grins. There were hundreds, and they stood statuesque amongst the writhing maelstrom surrounding them without any urge to intervene. As if signaled by some unseen force, their eyes opened as one, revealing flickering red and orange flames that consumed their irises. This was no reflection from the chaos around them. Their eyes burned with wholly unnatural fire from within. All who met their gaze, saw them as Demons.
        Their Leader, marked by thorns made into a crown upon its ridged forehead, stepped forward. It drew a sword that emanated pure white light. It hefted the blade into the air and looked as if it was made from a star’s light. The sword was like a fixed point in the sky’s vast dark ocean.
        The battle ceased around them as the two sides looked upon the Sword of Creation. Most wept and all were unable to move. The Demon’s Leader scanned the onlookers and sneered in distaste. It took a step towards the crowd and they quaked under its gaze. It stopped as split formed deep in the human masses.
        The once embattled crowds separated, like a sea parting at low tide. A lone warrior strode forward. Her eyes burned with similar fire as the Demons, but somehow - unlike the Demons - this fire was the most natural thing in creation. She did not share their armour, but the grimace on her face bore more intensity than the sneering skull-like faces that stood opposed to her. She was similar but greater in every way. Power radiated from her in a visible and tangible aura. A faint steam trail followed her in a wake from the freezing raindrops sizzling and evaporating before they could reach her. Her features were undefined, she looked both unassuming and radiant at the same time. The men and women around her each pictured a different beautiful form that was instantly forgotten as she passed. It was as if her form was not set; not fixed to one visage.
        She spoke to the Leader and her words echoed through the storm's gale-force wind; though none present could remember them. This conversation was not for the regular men and women, who had struggled and died en masse until now. However, they could feel the passion and the hurt in her voice, causing them to wail as one. An entire land’s populace, gathered to slaughter one and another, fell to their knees and howled their pain into the wind, forever changing its sound.
        The Demons did not lament. Their skull faces stared dispassionately as their Leader leveled the starlight blade, so that the point aimed at the Lone Warrior’s throat. They were chosen and were shielded from the powers at play.
        The Lone Warrior lowered her head in disappointment. For a moment, the storm ceased, and the world calmed. Everything was still. Time slowed to a standstill. They were alone, the only two beings in existence. The Lone Warrior slowly raised her eyes to meet the Demon’s Leader’s. The Demon’s Leader’s eyes flickered in the same way as wind gracing a flame’s tip, while hers remained sharp and unwavering.
        In a flash, the storm resumed with all its fury and more. Her sword flashed vertically across the Leader’s face, with the fury and speed of the lightning above. There was no time to react. The skull face roared its anger and split at the side as the slash tore up its face’s height, from jaw to temple.
        The Demon's Leader dropped the sword and the World quaked.
        It screeched in misery.
        It clawed at the wound.
        Cracks ran up and down the gaping slash. The skull gave one final roar, before falling away in two halves, revealing a man beneath. Blood ran from the wound on his face, in a great gushing burst. A living human-shaped shadow lifted from the man’s back. It clawed desperately at his flesh as it dissipated into a haze, like the water evaporating off the Lone Warrior's aura. The shadow screamed as it lost its purchase on the man’s flesh. The man’s eyes lost the fire and after a moment, became an icy blue.
        He looked up at the Lone Warrior in shock. He was free. His lips quivered and whispered, “I am so sorry...”

        The anger did not leave her gaze, but her expression softened with a hurt. She buried the pain as she could not allow herself to feel it at this time. Her time was short. She took up the starlight sword in her free hand - it glowed brighter in her grasp - and strode past the man. She looked upon the skull faced Demons as they drew their swords. They backed away from her, not from fear, but from an instinctual need for survival. She shouted her disappointment into the air in a long howling cry. The flames in their eyes flickered just, like their Leader’s but defiantly refused to extinguish.
        With a final roar, she swung the starlight blade in a great sweeping slash. White light, tinted with an electric blue, lashed at them and through them in a wave. Man-shaped shadows evaporated from their backs, like their leader, and disintegrated, with wretched inhuman screams. They fell to their knees, row after row, and the shadows cries were replaced with human anguish.
        The fire left the Lone Warrior’s eyes, leaving behind a near-white blue hue. It was the mark of those who had been touched by beings beyond this realm, the only difference was her eyes were natural to it. The fires that once possessed them were the unnatural form.

        The storm's swirling clouds began to dissolve above her and a single tear rolled to her chin. It fell to the blood and rain choked earth, but was still absorbed when it landed. The black earth parted to release a tiny green stem and a leaf unfurled from the tip. The plant flexed sharply. It burst upwards in rapid growth, until the stem hardened into a thick bark covered trunk. The leaf split and sprouted thousands like it along hearty branches that spread form the trunk's core. Roots tore through the earth, making the ground uneven. More saplings pushed from the soil. They grew like the first, rapidly and reaching high into the sky in a quest for sunlight. From the single tear, a forest, impossible in scale, grew to shield the World from the churning cloud vortex above. The lightning ceased and the rain faded.
        The horizon illuminated with the sun’s rising and the light touched the God’s Woods for the first time. It cut through the softening clouds, pushing the storm away in a red and orange tapestry. The Lone Warrior, known as the Daegon, faded as the sun’s light reached her; the Sword of Creation grew brighter than the sun itself before vanishing along with her.

II

        A tear rolled from her eye. This one was not allowed to fall. She caught it with her slender finger as it left her eye's lid.

        She watched the man with a longing and hurt that was indescribable in its feeling. Her heart was pulled from her chest. Every nerve was aflame with both sting and a numbing dull hurt, which attempted to overcome the pain. Even from the vast distance, through the swirling clouds, she met his eyes as he looked up into the sky. The blood from the wound along his face’s length was washed away by the dwindling rain. He seemed to stand alone in the devastated land and mangled bodies piled into mounds, from which more tree's grew. Although fresh life was sprouting as far as the eye could see, the land’s scars would never fully heal. However, a great forest was birthing from the misery and would be unlike any other. It would be a conduit to the afterlife.
        “He’ll be okay,” A pure white light said from behind her.
        The Daegon glanced over her shoulder into the light and said, “Thank you, Nessia.”
        With a thunder’s clap, the light solidified into a human approximation. Wings, made from pure light, unfurled from the celestial being’s back and stretched outwards, like a gigantic eagle’s hovering in flight. Robes, similar in tone to the wings, fluttered and flapped in the breeze as the wings grazed the air. The being had no face under the cowl that hovered where its head should have been. There were no limbs extending beyond the sleeveless robe’s edges, but the cloud's mist touched them revealing the being’s transparent skin.
        “I hate this Nessia,” The Daegon said to the being.
        “I am sorry I could not do more,” the celestial being said.
        “No, you did more than enough. I did not mean to sound ungrateful. You gave me the chance to save him.”
        “Achamus will live a long life,” the Celestial Being said, “His fate has shifted.”
        “Will he die from old age?”

        The hood shook back and forth, “No.”
        The Daegon looked back to the man and another tear descended her face. It dripped from her chin into the clouds she stood on. A small shower descended onto the world below.
        “We cannot deny our fate...” the Daegon said.
        “No, we can’t,” The Celestial Being agreed, “But we can shape it.”
        “Will you be okay, Nessia?” The Daegon asked.
        “The others will come for me and take my wings. That has always been my fate.”
        “You have seen it?”
        “I have,” The Celestial whispered.
        “I am sorry this will hurt you.”
        “Don’t be. Saving Achamus was necessary... to end this.”
        The Daegon nodded and pulled her eyes away from the man, “Is it time?”
        “It is,” the hood gave a as nod. “I will come with you as far as I am able.”
        “You don’t have to. I know the way.”
        “Call it fate, Daegon.”
        “I could stop them. I have the strength.”
        “No... it would destroy what we have done. The God’s would awaken from their slumber and destroy everything. Not even you have the power to stop them all at once.”
        The Daegon nodded, defeated, and remained silent for a few moments. Nessia was right. "Let's go," She said at last.
        The Celestial Being placed her invisible hand on the Daegon’s shoulder and they dissipated with the last remaining cloud, into the retreating vortex.

III

        The vortex’s fringe became less defined as the sun rose further, turning the sky into a brilliant blue. It stubbornly let out a last furious roar as if it were a living thing giving its last breath. It spent its remaining power in an ever shrinking, churning, mass. The tidal swirling ceased - reversed - then collapsed. Over time the clouds dissipated. The war was over. Mankind’s realms were separated from the Gods' once more.
        At the battle’s edge, on an overlooking bluff, a small group sneered with skeletal faces. Their former leader had always left a small force hidden in reserve. Despite their immense powers, they were not immune to death and dismemberment.

        They watched the survivors with hatred in their hearts and with score at those who were no longer amongst their numbers; those who were no longer touched. The burning in their eyes had subdued somewhat, like hot coals in a cooling fire pit, rather than the raging inferno they had once been. Slowly, one at a time, they took their leave.
        Each knew this was not the end.
        Each knew a new war would begin.
        Each knew this was an interlude to a longer war, to the final war.
        Their Gods still whispered in their ear, despite their forced slumber.
        A last Demon remained after the others withdrew. It glared with menace at the assembly and still growing forest below. After a while, it blinked, allowing a man’s blue eyes to overtake the burning orange coals. This was merely a disguise. Its power was not diminished, like those below. At last, it turned from the bluff’s tipped edge and walked towards the sunlight.
        Its shadow crawled before it, against the light, like a thousand spiders. Its serrated teeth grinned, knowing its time would come again. The Gods' War would continue in time. For now, the Gods had other duties for it. It would not be found wanting.

Thanks,

Brett