Life of Forawian Noramim
Chapter 1:
The Destruction of the Pheo’drak
The skies are dark, sounds of explosions erupt in the distance of Pheo’drak and screams of terror erupt in the forest. The Captain of the Guard stands at the gates watching out into the forest whilst shaking a bit. Someone touches his shoulder, causing him to freeze as he hears a commanding sound, “Captain, what’s the situation so far?” He turns around and looks at the tall Elf who held a tower shield and a spear. His eyes red and blue, he quickly replies, “Nothing so far, our scouts have not reported back, though the sounds of the explosions are drawing nearer. The terrors of the humans grows louder also; they're coming in our direction and whatever they happen to be fighting, they’re going to bring it straight towards us.” He shivers a bit and looks out into the forest. The giant man nods and goes to comfort the civilians, making sure everything is safe. Soon a boy dressed in purple robes approaches him. “Where’s my father?” he says in a demanding voice, worthy of someone much older. The tall man replies in a somewhat annoying manner, “He’s off busy... and you watch your tone with me...” The boy saddens and apologizes as he recieves a smile and a pat on the head from the tall man. “He’ll return shortly, and don’t worry, we can handle whatever is out there. I assure you, Forawian, that your father is safe and is coming back. Besides, we wouldn’t survive without his help.”
He chuckles knowing he told the boy a lie. They could easily handle themselves without him. Forawian chuckles, “Thanks, Salvin you always know how to cheer me up... But I hear that the human towns around us are being raided... and that they are all going to retreat here…” The boy's voice is shaky and filled with fear. Salvin replies, “Indeed, the human settlements have been raided by unknown forces, and our scouts haven’t replied back. Right now, we can only hope for the best.” He moves his spear to his back and kneels down to the boy. “Forawian, your father would kill me if he saw you out here. It is not safe to be in the roads in these times, as the humans' retreat will crowd this place. Take shelter in the tower you can view everything from there.” He pats him on the head, standing up and quickly moving away before Forawian can even reply. Forawian obeys his orders and makes his way to the tower, standing at the top of the tower and peering out the top. As you see through his eyes, you see fires erupting from eight areas. The skies are covered in clouds of billowing smoke, and soon soldiers yell out to the walls that they are seeing humans approaching the gate. The gate is quickly opened and the refugees rush in, clambering not to be the last through. As soon as it had started, the last men had gotten through, and the gates slam shut. Soon a Phoenix is seen flying from the skies landing onto the walls, on it rides a messenger.
The messenger quickly approached Salvin at the gate. He wore black leather armor, covered in blood. When he reached Salvin, he quickly informed him of the news, “We're dealing with undead forces... Huge in numbers... Thousands, maybe even millions of them.... They're redirecting their attack towards our city. I believe they're going to try take out our city fast and swift... They aim to make a spearhead attack past the mountain to take out all supply routes of our nation” He breaths hard, struggling to catch his breath, and continues, “It would be a devastating blow and I suggest that we call for more reinforcements... Maybe arm all the civilians in the to-...” Salvin interrupted, his trademark dark tone showing through. “No, the civilians will not be armed. We are strong and the undead are weak. We face only mere skeletons and backbone creations of failure! Their numbers may be great, but one sweep of our powers and we’ll kill them easily without even breaking a sweat.” The scout curses Salvin's ignorance under his breath, quickly turning and hopping back onto his Phoenix. The messenger wastes no time, and quickly departs. Salvin turns around towards the dark forest as the trees whistle quietly. He notes the fact that the explosions have stopped, and that only the fire crackles as it sends burning embers high into the skies... He suddenly placed a hand on his hip, gazing out with apprehension; everything was too quiet... As predicted, something is seen in the skies, hurtling towards them. Salvin jaws dropped, and he barked out a command with a degree of panic. “Take Cover!” The thing in the skies flies closer, and it impacts on the cities' buildings. Salvin ducked quickly behind the nearest cover as daggers flew everywhere, nearly killing a few guards were it not for the warning.
Despite many taking cover, guards screamed in pain on the walls as daggers cut their flesh. More things flew from the skies, impacting and this time erupting with fire. Salvin yelled orders quickly to extinguish the fires and made way to the gate as fast as he could. Whatever was in the skies stopped falling and soon loud roars were heard, with the very ground shaking from the noise alone. Quickly the guards returned fire, unleashing volleys of arrows into the blazing forest. As the arrows flew, their flames lit up the ground, revealing millions of the undead armored skeletons. As the arrows struck them, they took the pain and soldiered on only to combust into flames and fall crying a tormented scream. But they held their ground for some reason. Soon a prominent figure was seen riding his skeleton horses, clad in dark black plate armor. He cried out and swung his sword into the skies before bringing it down to point at the town. The skeletons roar and charge to the town. Covering them, thousands of arrows arced over their heads and into the skies. Salvin, near the town gate, yelled, “Obliterate them!”. In reply, the Captain of the Guard nodded and yelled, “Napalm!”. The guards on the walls all nodded to each other, co-ordinating their attack, and took a giant deep breath, blowing out a giant wave of fire towards the undead army. As the fire hit the army everything was buried under a thick wall of fire, blocking out all vision of the army and presumably incinerating them. Thick smoke rose from the fire's wake, and several minutes later it cleared... However, from the fading wisps of smoke, the untouched undead army advanced in a line - shields raised and very much intact.
The elves continued breathing fire, trying to take most of them out in vain. They were forced to stop soon, as the army was now too close to the walls for such magic. As they reached the walls, the skeleton soldiers linked together and formed ladders out of their own bones. They, using this technique, soon began scaling the walls, rushing to get to the top of the walls. The guards reacted hurriedly, burning all the ladders down and trying with all their strength. But alas, the numbers of the undead were too great to keep magic up, so they resorted to their swords - swinging rapidly to slice and dice most of them. The skeletons died slowly and soon they let forth twisted and distorted laughter; they know it is impossible for the guards to stop all of them. The guards continued swinging but one of them was impaled through the head, with five more swords struck through his chest and stomach. His corpse was abused by the skeletons, and the other guards watched as the undead began picking him up into the air and flinging him off the walls towards the swarm. The guards continued fighting and below, young Forawian watched in horror. The guards were fighting to the death and watching the skeletons be slaughtered, only to be replaced by more of the undead scourge. Salvin was easily cutting down the skeletons with his blade, kicking them off the wall and hurling his blade, which always teleported back to him to be thrown again. His massive shield was a fierce weapon, knocking the skeletons off the walls and when used as a blade, cutting through the undead. The Captain of the Guard continued yelling orders and tried to stop the undead skeletons from breaking the gate down.
Civilians ran to the gate, trying desperately to hold onto it as they all pushed in counter to the enemy. The force on the gates stopped suddenly for a split second, only to explode into dark flames. A massive force of skeletons charged through, laughing as they begun slaughtering the men. Shoving their swords into their throats, the undead quickly made work of the men and charged towards the massive crowds in the middle. Forawian watched in horror and he could not prevent himself from screaming. Trying to help, he flung a panicked fireball towards the swarm but fell to his knees - useless. Forawian cannot stop any of them. The skeletons still charge and swing their swords onto the innocents grabbing most of them and throwing them to the ground for execution. Children cried but soon their heads rolled off their shoulders and they were silent. The Captain of the Guard tried to stop most of them and Salvin too charged towards the middle, cutting a formidable amount of foes down without wasting time. All was hopeless, however. Though the guards fought relentlessly to the last breath in their bodies, they slowly fell - dying one by one. Most of them retreated, rushing past Salvin and abandoning the gates. The Captain of the Guard breathed hard like he had never before, still using his fire until skeletons charged from both sides.
Unsheathing his sword, the Captain sliced most of them in half, holding his ground valiantly, despite the fact he was now surrounded by the undead and could see none of his allies alive. The figure in the black plate mail ran down an isle towards the gate, pointing his sword towards the Captain. He continued fighting, paying no attention to the figure as he was too busy defending from all sides, eventually going into a frenzy with all his strength. But suddenly, his arms fell limp to his sides, and he was torn from the ground - hurtling far into the tower and becoming held against the stone by an invisible force. Forawian looked below the window, staring wide eyed at the Captain. He reached out in vain, holding a hand outstretched as he knelt crying, trying desperately to help him.
But Forawian could not save him. The Captain started wincing as he felt his flesh start to tear, and watched in horror as his own arms slowly began ripping from apart from his body. With his last amounts of strength, he held back the pain, yelling, “Don’t look, Forawian! Don't look!!”. He screamed in pain, a tormented cry that made the young elf watching want to be violently sick, yet Forawian still looked, unable to move and paralyzed with fear. It was too late for him to avert his gaze, as the Captain's legs and arms ripped from his torso, dragging sinews of flesh with the limbs. Blood splashed out from the joints, and quickly spattered onto the ground below. Forawian cried and screamed, his hand to his chest, and fell backwards into the room, crying and crawling into a ball. Salvin looked away from the brutal murder, feeling a deep hatred in his chest for whoever tortured the brave warrior. The skeletons surrounded the civilians, screams rang out as they were killed mercilessly. Salvin ordered the guards to get the remaining civilians who had not been trapped into the tower and to get them through the secret passage. He detailed in his instructions also that Forawian must escape with them.
The guards tried evacuating but only seven made it out - two guards and five civilians - before the dark armored man appeared right in front of the door and began slicing all those around him in half with a single movement of his sword. Salvin looked at the dark armored man and twirled his blade insanely fast, stabbing at him. But the armoured man only laughed as the sword went through him as if he were a ghost. The skeletons laughed in unison, as if they were linked to him but soon it went dead silent. Salvin looked at the overwhelming numbers of enemies and then looked at back at the armored man. The evil figure grimmed, “I’ll let two more go - but I pick one that stays. It seems to me that since you’re skilled and held off many of my creations you are free to go... but as for the second one... the civilians must decide.” Salvin tried to tell them of the child that lived in the tower, but all of them greedy. They only said they themselves should go and only them. But soon a baby was seen being held by a woman and handed to Salvin, who reluctantly held it. The civilians remianed quiet from the sight, all nodded their heads and looked away.
Salvin nodded and sighed, looking at the tower and then back towards the gate - where there lay a pathway. He said his farewells sadly, not even looking at them as they made their way. The skeletons closed the pathway behind Salvin and all marched towards the crowd. The creations forced them down to their knees and lined them all up. Soon the armored man smiled and turned his head. The cries of the young elf Forawian reached his ears, and he effortlessly teleported there to him. “Oh, so that’s what he was talking about... Well little one, time for you to come with me.” Forawian tried to attack him with his hands but failed, flailing and screaming as he was picked up by the neck and teleported back. He was soon forced down onto his knees to see the civilians lined up. “I’ll let you live also, boy but you have to watch this if you want to live. If you close your eyes, my friend here will kill you. As for me, I have much more important things to do.” He laughs and disappears into the crowd of skeletons. Forawian did as he was told to survive, he watched, unable to close his eyes, crying and watching as the skeletons steadied their blades on back of their neck. He tries to look away but the skeleton forces his head to stare at the crowd. Everything was quiet and he blinks for one second and soon he closed his eyes and everything was silent, all he heard for a second was a loud thud and him being held near a person’s chest hearing nothing else but the crackles of fire. He opened his eyes looking up at the tall figure and seeing his dad; he cried more hugging him seeing nothing else but ashes and scorched buildings.
Thu Apr 30, 2009 2:02 pm
