Were it not for the encouraging and consoling words of Hiliána, the grief may well have crushed Eldárien and Elmáriyë into incapacity, but as it is they proceed on their journey after only a short rest. But this does not mean that their hearts are not grievously sorrowful and filled with lament for the terrors […]

Elmáriyë wakes to Eldárien’s voice and to the touch of his hand upon her shoulder. In a whisper he says, “Wake up, but remain still and quiet.” As the grogginess of sleep fades away, she sits and tries to look at her brother in the darkness, but she can see nothing. The fire has burned […]

Tûric’s company passes along the eastern edge of the castle as he leads them, with his expert knowledge of the city, to a low side garden. It is reached through descending five tall steps and overshadowed by lattices from which, during the warm months, grow richly interlacing vines, though they are now dry and brown. […]

As they emerge from the other side of the spillway and step into the city itself, climbing up to a wide stone platform a couple feet above the water, which serves as a harbor of small boats, they find nothing but silence and stillness. The city itself, were it not for a pervading sense of […]

They draw near to the city of Minstead on the twelfth day after their departure from Onylándun, though they know this not through sight of the former city but because they are intercepted by survivors from the siege. The landscape to the south of the city is rocky and rough, with mountains rising both to […]

When all the able-bodied fighters have been gathered in the city of Onylándun, they stand four-thousand in number. Fifteen-hundred of these are trained warriors, guardsmen and soldiers, and the rest are simply townsfolk who have volunteered to lend their arm to the cause. Brýma refuses to draft any of the men of his city unwillingly […]

And so the events are set in motion which all have awaited and feared, expected and desired, hoped for and yet wished to avoid. As a stone on a precipice high in the mountains is loosed and falls with nothing to stop its descent, so now begin events which shall continue to their conclusion without […]

The council hall is illumined by the light of countless lanterns and torches struggling to fight back the pervading darkness as the counselors and their interlocutors gather together, the messenger who has just arrived standing in their midst. After being received at the main city gates, he was offered a change of clothes and a […]

Despite their desire to depart with haste, another week passes for them in the city of Onylándun, occupied with the recovery of their bodies which sustain abiding trauma from the events of the siege and the absorption of the dark, and with aiding however they can in salvaging some sense of life for the people […]

Eldárien awakes to the sound of voices. Without opening his eyes, he allows consciousness to gradually return to him, and the events that led to his collapse surge before his mind’s eye. He sees again the hordes of creatures laying siege to the city with merciless intent, and he sees the flames devouring the houses […]