Apr. 21, 2007 - The Khartom Blades
Prologue
Khartom, the Kingdom of the World, was just ahead. The enemies eyed the lands and were filled with desire and a longing need. They had waited for centuries to be here, but now . . . the time had come to put the kingdom in its rightful place.
“Stop here,” commanded the captain, “We’ll go the rest of the way at night. We don’t want to underestimate these people.”
The crew followed the command in an orderly fashion, causing the ship to stop and then they threw their anchor to stop them from drifting. As they dropped the anchor and heard it clang on the bottom of the sea, there was a fantastic roar from beneath the waves.
The men, not knowing the source of the sound, began to panic. They ran about the ships and started to find something to defend themselves with, hoping that they were going to see another sunrise.
There was another roar. This sent waves of crippling fear through the soldiers. As some stood there, immobile from the fear, they heard the sound of broken water. Following the sound of something coming up was the image of a monster unlike any other the crew had seen before. It was a Hasta! The long, serpent-like monster towered almost fifty feet above the deck of the ship.
As the men followed the long, scaled body up its neck, they came to the mouth. What they saw there were a bunch of sharp teeth as big as a man’s hand all jumbled around in the mouth, but the thing that protruded the most were two long fangs in the front, almost as long as a man.
The Hasta let out a deafening roar that was twice as loud as it was under the water. The decks of the ships were in complete chaos. Some of the men had grabbed their bow and arrows and started to shoot at the Hasta, but to no avail.
“Tural!” called the men, wanting their ultimate protection to come to them.
A young man came out of the cabin. His tall body alone gave the men more confidence. He stood there for a minute, oblivious to the mayhem around him. After some moments, he looked at the monster towering above the deck.
The young man took his hands and held them up and yelled, “Fulmen!”
Bolts of lightning shot from his hands and flew towards the beast. When the tendrils of energy hit the Hasta, they traveled through its body down to the water. After a few minutes, Tural said, “Termin.”
All energy coursing through the creature ended and what followed was a foul stench of burnt flesh. The men on the deck cheered for their wizard, but Tural didn’t join in the celebration. There were more pressing matters to attend to. He went back into his cabin and left the men to enjoy themselves in their “victory.”
After the celebration was over, it was time to get back to business. The men, now over their previous fears, began to prepare for the upcoming battle. They sharpened the swords, practiced the different maneuvers, and did whatever else was necessary to prepare for the impending battle.
****-----****
Darkness had fallen over the land and the city of
Tural was out on the deck with the soldiers and he just stared ahead at the city, his piercing blue eyes missing nothing. Khartom had shown no sign of noticing the presence of the fleet, but that was the problem. Surely they would have heard the Hasta and the clamoring of ships.
The ships, now reaching their destination, began to lower the transport boats that would take the men from the sea to the land. The first and second waves, which included Tural, made it to the beach fine. It was when the third wave started to come that Khartom began to open up.
“Theryo!” exclaimed the young wizard, creating a shield around the group on the beach.
As they stood within the shield, the men watched as the enemy ships began moving in on their own fleet. The Chance, the command ship of the Ironians, had been surrounded on all sides and been destroyed.
Some more of the men had made it to the shore, but as soon as they got out of their boats, they were shot down by the archers up on the cliff. Any of the arrows that hit the shield went up into flames.
“Shoot at them!” exclaimed Tural, “You’re arrows will penetrate the shield.”
Obeying their leader, the men began to fire their arrows up at the archers above them. As the enemies were hit, they fell over the cliff face and came down on top of the shield and met the same fate as the arrows that hit. Soon, many of the archers up top had been shot down or retreated.
When he thought they were safe, Tural let down the shield surrounding him and his men. On the sea, the battle didn’t fare well for either side. Both sides had lost over half of their fleet and they had both lost their command ships. Now that the archers were gone, other soldiers from the Ironian fleet began to join their comrades on the beach.
Soon, the force on the beach contained around seven hundred men, all armed to the teeth. They began their way up the hill to assault the city itself. As they were making their way up the hill, beasts began to run down the hill from the opposing direction toward the Ironian men.
“Attack!” shouted Tural, “Spare none!”
The men ran forward and began to fight the enemy. Within the ranks of the enemy there were all sorts of beasts: powerful ogres, elves, and wargs.
Tural kept a small detachment of men near him for protection, but he still helped out in the battle. He constantly shouted spells of all sorts to take out the enemies. He used the pryglob spell, causing balls of fire to erupt from where he designated.
The battle continued, beginning to tip in the Ironian’s favor. There was constant hacking of swords and firing of bows. Men and beast alike continuously fell over, dead or injured. As the ranks of the enemy began to lessen more, the men fought on with a determination like no other. When the enemy had been destroyed, the men continued on.
As the attacking Ironians went on, they met little or no resistance. Finally, they reached their target. The palace stood ahead of them in all of its grandeur and majesty. The moat, which would pose no difficulty to the attackers, was wide and contained oil-soaked wood. The battlements that surrounded the palace were high and there were already men there preparing to repel the invaders.
Both sides did nothing. One was waiting for the other to make the first move. When neither began, the only sound was the cry of wounded and of the battle down below. Tural murmured something that few heard. Moments later, rain started to fall. It came down slowly at first but it was soon coming down hard.
Both sides were now closer to the edge than ever before. Each side was itching for the battle to begin, each for his own reason.
“Levau!” exclaimed Tural, pointing his hands toward the moat.
At his command, logs and sticks from the moat came up and joined together, making a bridge.
“Fire!” a voice shouted from on the battlements.
Someone fired a fire arrow towards the oil-soaked moat, but it didn’t catch because of the rain! As the Ironians made their way across the make-shift bridge over the moat, archers fired down from the battlements, falling many men, but it didn’t stop the seemingly endless torrent of hundreds of men. As Tural made his way over the bridge, with his own personal shield up, arrows were constantly consumed by fire as they hit the shield.
Tural was across the moat when another blur of energy came from the top of the battlements. The energy bolt hit Tural’s shield and destroyed it, leaving him defenseless! Tural immediately rolled to one side, grabbing a sword from a dead soldier. When he had gotten up, he looked around for the source of the attack. He found it.
An older, much wiser, wizard was on top of the battlements, staring hard at the young Tural.
“Plagam infligere!” shouted both wizards.
Shots of red erupted from the two wizards’ hands and flew towards the target. Before either wizard could react, they were hit with the red force. As they were hit, the two wizards fell over dead.
As the two wizards lay were they died, a ghostly presence rose up from their bodies. The ethereal entities hung there for a few moments and then they started to glide towards each other. As they came closer together, the stronger the pull of them coming together became. When they were finally close enough, they were pulled into each other. Flames erupted from the two joining “ghosts”. People started to back away, but still stayed to watch the awesome spectacle. After a few moments, there was no more fire, just smoke. As the smoke rose, lying there on the ground were two blades. One of the swords had a blade with a green hue to it, with a circle-shaped guard. The other sword has a blade of a red color, with a wave-shaped guard.
When the two sides saw these blades, they took it as a sign from the gods to lay down their arms and remember this day as the first day of peace, to remember this day as the day of the Khartom Blades.
What do you think. This is the first part of a book that I am planning to write.
Comments
Apr. 28, 2007 - Untitled Comment
Posted by missAnonymous
thanks
May. 4, 2007 - Untitled Comment
Posted by ButterflyGrace
That was the best thing I have ever read
write more I have to know what happens!
Ashley
May. 5, 2007 - Untitled Comment
Posted by Alagasiagirl
THAT WAS SO COOL! :D I have always wanted to write a book, I even got the characters, names, and storyline, but I could never manage to get it down on paper. :( Oh well! Add me to your friends list, I put you on mine.
Alagasiagirl
