Of Gods and Warriors ✓

Chapter 18

Five years ago.

The battle of Brihurst Isles, Year 484 after the Great War.

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Here I die for a war not my own. Does the Crown deem me loyal now?

"I hear the coastal guards have a good healer, go find them."

"You're insane, Karyk. This is Glikayne, you hear me? Draedona's already dragging him back as we speak."

In the silence that followed, boots squelched against the soggy sand. A pair of calloused hands closed around the young man's shaking shoulders.

"Can you sit up, lad? No- don't close your eyes... wake up, there. Tell me, what's your name?"

Dark clouds swirled overhead, the scent of an upcoming storm riding the salty air of the eastern coasts of the Brihurst Isles. The pale sea was the color of bleached bones, ships of the Drisian marine fleet hovering in the distance like black silhouettes.

Coconut trees lining the shore swayed with the wind. Beneath them, the sandy mud was soaked with blood; the waves occasionally washed the stains off the shore, the foams turning pink.

But more blood seeped into the sand, faster than the waves could erase. The young Drisian marine lay there, bleeding out.

"Talk, lad. Don't you close your eyes," said the voice, "tell me your name."

"Pertheran..." he managed, "Pertheran Du...Durinford."

Raw pain gnawed away at his flesh. He saw colors burst on the grey sky above, reds, purples and blues; colors that weren't there. His arms and legs convulsed and twitched of their own accord. With audible snaps, his bones began to crack.

Pertheran tried to scream, but no sound left him. Another bout of seizure made his teeth go right through his tongue. Blood gushed into his throat, choking him.

Through his veins, Draedona's tears spread like fire.

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This centuries-old feud between the two kingdoms had done naught but throw the land into chaos, turning it into a ground crawling with sorcery where Gods were sure to enter the fray. The Great War, and the Apocalypse that had followed, taught all of Stormvale a lesson in the destruction of nearly half of its people. A lesson, that withered from the fickle mortal minds with time.

Out marched the Drisians again, to conquer all Stormvale, but more specifically, Midaelia.

Pertheran Durinford wanted nothing to do with it.

All he wanted to do was tend to the farm and get his kid sister some proper schooling-- something he'd never had the chance to have.

When he'd come home at the end of the day, famished, Mother would have warm bread ready for them, and steaming stew, of vegetables freshly picked from their own little garden for supper. How sweetly Mother would laugh when little Eryna would recite rhymes she'd learnt in a sing-song voice.

Then he'd go to sleep. His bed may not have been the most comfortable, the thin blankets not without rips and tears, but he'd sleep like the most peaceful man in the world.

But Pertheran's world crumbled then, when the Calbridge Division of the Drisian army suffered casualties in an ambush from the soldiers of Kinallen near the border, which halted the campaign. Not long after that, they were setting up tents across the moor, and one such fine morning, a lieutenant rode up to the peasants.