BatB Prologue
Feb. 9th, 2015 09:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
youngarrowThe clashing of weapons was a chaotic dirge in her ears, wet, slick sounds of metal on flesh all around, cries both familiar and foreign warring for dominance around her. Her mind had disconnected long, long before, almost as soon as the battle began, the chaos and death surrounding her too much for her to bear. Her short years had not prepared her to see her people slaughtered like insects under a boot, the enemy driving forward too heavily to bear up under for long. There was almost certainly only one way for the day to end: death to all.
All around her warriors fought valiantly, felling foe after for with their graceful, twirling blades and deceptively light arrows. But this was the final push of a mad and desperate leader, one who had suffered grand successes but also withering defeats, one that didn't know how to cope with either. The war hadn't been quite a stalemate, but it never teetered long in either direction, and he was clearly through with waiting for what he considered his just rewards. Their kingdom lay over desirable grounds, with teeming rivers, lush forests, and grand fields everywhere; now the forests were half-gone, trees felled for kindling and siege weapons, the rivers carried body fragments and poisoned fish, and the fields were soaked with blood. The warriors she fought beside were stronger, mightier than any of their foes, fighting in defense of their homeland and their lives.
But their foes were much greater in number.
For every fifth enemy a warrior cut down, a sixth would appear with a blade in just the right place. For every twenty an archer eliminated, a twenty-first's arrow would find an exposed face or neck. The final act of a mad tyrant had pulled his entire thuggish army to face the remainders of what hadn't been a large force to begin with, even if they had been exceptionally well-trained, and any loses were acceptable to him whereas none were acceptable to his opponents. There was no possibility for or even hope of mercy; all of the fighters knew that surrender would only bring death. Even as she fought and parried, driving their serrated blades from her side, she saw Tolven collapse, face twisted in pain as his enemy carved through his gut. Behind him, Cartheliel was fighting for her life against three opponents, her blades a whirling cacophony of destruction as the razor-sharp edges met flesh again and again. Beyond her-
She gasped. It wasn't possible, it couldn't happen...
Her leader, her king, his great sword singing in the air around him, had found his opponent, the misshapen monster that had begun all of this, trapped villagers in their homes to burn, slew the queen and the noncombatants of the palace when they had been caught trying to escape to safety from the oncoming force, and was facing him in single combat. But even as she watched, her own opponents dead and herself with a brief respite, the dishonor of their enemy was obvious as the leader roared something in their strange growling language. Without warning, without heed, the monsters nearest her king turned, ignoring their previous foes and all their blades driving for his back, neck, and sides, and she cried aloud, trying in vain to warn him though it was impossible for him to hear her over the din of the battle.
But her king was no fool, and as soon as the yell began he had swept his blade in a great arc around himself, nearly five feet of tempered metal an effective barrier to close-range attacks, turning to face this new attack from his flank. His son, her friend the prince, not twenty feet beyond, broke free of his own melee and started shoving through the combatants in an attempt to reach his father, mouth open in a warning just as hers was. The warriors who had been fighting the monsters that had turned on the king didn't relax, lunging after their former opponents as well. A sword hit, biting into an arm and driving the blow off; an arrow, grabbed from a nearby corpse, was shoved through the soft spot at the base of a skull and the enemy collapsed in a heap then and there; a dagger was thrown with wicked accuracy, severing tendons in the back of a knee and sending the monster crashing to the ground. Blood was everywhere, mixed with the dull brown-black of the enemy armor and the silvery green of their own, coating everything, hair and eyes and hands and it didn't matter anymore because the king, the king-
The enemy leader's blade found its mark as his back was turned, a wide, grinning snarl on his face as the point found the one small section of unprotected skin in the back of her king's armor. His face froze in shock as he was speared from behind, mouth open in a small gasp, and even from so far away she could see his eyes contracting in shock. Sound seemed to drop away from the world, the battle fading around her as a hoarse scream ripped from her throat at the sight of her king, almost her father, with a blade through his stomach, the tip not able to break through the armor on his front but having dented the metal next to his spine with the force of the blow. She felt rather than saw her friends, her comrades, echo her cry as the feeling of their king's mortality hit each and every one of them, knocking them senseless for moments they couldn't afford. Shadowy echoes of the same pain of nothingness, the same ones that had been coming more and more quickly the entire battle, bloomed behind her eyes as the enemy took advantage of their distraction, dozens of lives falling under their blades in the space of seconds.
She herself only came out of her daze barely in time to catch the sword headed for her neck with the hilt of her dagger; as it was, she still sustained a slash above her wrist that only missed her tendons by sheer luck before burying her other dagger in the creature's gut. She ignored the wound, wrenched her blade free, and began sprinting over the fighting ground to her king's body as all others who could were doing; another wound in this day would not matter much to her. She was already caught between shock and the body surge that would keep her going long after she should have dropped; there was no time to give into pain now, if she wanted to survive the day. But with her king dead, did she truly want to?
That was when she felt it: a wave of fire through her, starting low and quickly simmering high, a heat that boiled in her blood like liquid starlight and fueled her movements, driving her faster across the field that was starting to bleach. She paid little attention to the colors leeching out of everything around her, turning the bodies into statues and the blades into mirrors, all her attention focused on reaching the king. His son had arrived first, and she watched as his sword found the leader's neck, severing his head from his shoulders with a yell she couldn't hear. The corpse fell next to the king, the removed head bouncing off among the clawed feet of the enemy as they cowered from the loss of color, those at the edges of the battle turning to run. Dimly, she realized the loss of color was actually only a symptom. As she watched the prince collapse next to his father, bringing his head onto his knees, he and the king both glowed brighter and brighter, their skin becoming shimmering silver and their eyes turning to molten, shining steel. She shoved a brute out of the way and it screamed in pain as her hands left it; apparently the light was anathema to them, painful even. More and more turned to flee as the remaining warriors converged on the point where the king had fallen, their hair and armor starting to smoke, their blades dropping to the ground as the pain overtook their minds and reduced them down to the few self-preservation instincts they had remaining.
When she reached the king, she was somehow not amazed to see that he was still alive, even though that couldn't last for more than a few minutes. Their only healer left couldn't treat a wound of that magnitude, one that was surely already poisoning the inside of his body if the blade itself hadn't already done that, as they tended to coat their swords to make their victims' suffering as painful as possible. Even through the silver light shining from their remaining people his skin was white, white with pain, blood loss, and the effort of magic - a talent not given to many among their people, but as the king, he had a right to more than most, even if it still wasn't enough to save his life. There were words coming from his lips, words she couldn't hear, but judging from their lips his son was speaking with him, coaching his father or reinforcing him she couldn't tell. The light built, the heat inside grew until even she could feel a tingling on her skin that began growing painful, purifying her, burning her from the inside out-
-and around them all, everything exploded in silver light.
Her eyes instinctively shut so she wouldn't be blinded as the energy poured over her, the most she'd ever felt from one spell casting. The most she'd ever felt, ever, even if she'd taken all the other castings and added them together. She had to grab onto the person next to her to keep from falling under that onslaught and he clutched at her in return, their boots slipping in the blood-slicked dirt beneath them but the stickiness of the mess helping them stay upright. Several moments passed before the magic subsided, stealing her breath away with it, and both of them fell as their bodies went weak and limp as their vitality was sucked out of them by whatever their king had done. She didn't mind; whatever it was, it had been to help them, to save them, and it seemed to have worked since no one was driving a dagger into her skull as she lay on the ground.
There was no telling how long she lay there on the torn-up ground, breathing deeply to try and feel something like life again in her limbs. Seconds passed, or maybe days, before a hand touched her shoulder gently; long, slim, straight fingers, the fingers of one of her people. The hand helped her to sit up, steadied her against a thankfully warm body, and she opened her eyes to find Nibenglor supporting her, pushing the mud-splattered hair from her eyes so she could see. A worn nod of thanks was all she could give before her friend tilted his head toward the king, not saying a word into the strange silence that had fallen around them all.
"It is done." Thranduil's voice was a thin mockery of its former self; deep, rich, and commanding before, it had been reduced to thready and breathless as he struggled to breath. His head still rested in Legolas' lap; only the two of them seemed to have been untouched by the explosion, perhaps because they had been casting the spell themselves. "I do not... know... what will happen now," he continued slowly, all eyes focused on his face. "An old spell, that was... known only to my... my line... to grant one, one wish."
"Adar, lie still," Legolas whispered, brushing the long platinum hair from his father's face.
The king could not even manage to shake his head, only blink in protest. He drew breath, which turned into a weak cough as it caught halfway down his throat. "No time. You must..." Coughing again, Thranduil managed to turn his head enough to not let the drops of blood flying from his mouth hit his son. "You must swear," he gasped when he could speak again, "you all must swear, to pro... protect our home. That was... my wish, and I know it is y-yours as well. You would... not have fought half... so well if it was not..."
"I swear." "And I." "As you wish it, my liege." Voices rose around her, not nearly as many as there should have been, tying themselves by spoken oath to their king's dying wish. She joined her vow to the others, and as she did, the last of the tingling burned turned sideways within her, locking itself in place and joining to something outside herself with a warmth she had not expected. Around her, there were suddenly almost physical flares of life-sense in a ragged circle: the survivors of the battle, twelve others, too few by far, now much closer to her in spirit than they had ever been before. A small awareness of her companions and notice of their deaths had changed to a sense of location, a sense of well-being and stability, and she wondered for a fleeting moment if it would always be this way from now on or if the new sensation would gradually revert back to the previous standard.
Thranduil breathed a soundless sigh of relief, his expression relaxing into one almost of ease as he slowly closed his eyes. "Thank you all. There are no more... of them... here now. What else... will hap...happen I know... not." He spoke more and more slowly as the life drained out of him, but his own determination would not let him stop while he could still draw breath. "It is a des...perate... spell. I only... hope... it is... able... to save you..."
Legolas slipped his hand into his father's, squeezing it lightly to reassure him. "I will look after them, Adar."
"My... son." Opening his eyes once more, his voice weaker than ever, the king could barely manage to turn his head the few degrees it took to bring the prince into his view. "So like... your..."
The light in his eyes finally went dark as Thranduil lost his battle with his injuries, his life pooled below him in sticky reddish-brown. The King of the Wood would breath no more.
Legolas bowed his head over his father's, the others following suit, no one stirring even as thunder began to ripple in the air above them. Several minutes later, the prince - now king - lowered his father to the ground and summoned the survivors with just a look, younger than his father but no less commanding. The magic had healed the wounds every one of them had acquired, but was unable to restore the lost blood to their bodies or take away the immediate effects of the battle-shock, and many of them had to help each other to their feet, some remaining leaning against each other even as they surveyed their lands. Nibenglor remained next to her, the two of them propping each other up as their failed to hide their surprise.
The magic had done its job, and done it well; not only were living enemies nowhere to be seen, but the dead ones had disappeared as well. Most likely the light had burned them to ashes, judging by the piles littering the field as far out as they could see, the magic as hurtful to the corpses as it had been to the living beings. Blood was still everywhere, but their own dead were both easier and harder to look at, because they had been restored to the glory of their life in that pulsing wave of energy. Not a cut, not a wound could be seen on any of them, and if it hadn't been for the unnatural positions several of them had fallen in and the frozen expressions of surprise and pain on many faces, they could have been sleeping.
"There," Cartheliel suddenly spoke into the silence, drawing one of her last arrows from her quiver and nocking it to her bow. Eyes followed the arrow tip to the treeline, where a shadowy figure moved behind the trunks, trying to stay out of range. But even as it tried to traverse a space between trees, a wide space that would have given Cartheliel a clear shot at it, it was shoved back into the underbrush, sparks igniting between it and the group. A faint scream reached their ears even at the far distance. Or possibly it was the stinging shriek of the spell, actively and angrily protecting them from the intruders that would take the land's remaining children.
Legolas' eyes narrowed slightly, silently considering for several minutes as the rest waited for him. Even with the new awareness of her friends and kin, she could not read what was going through his mind, and would never discover what had been his focus at that time. But as king now, he held the service they all willingly granted him, and they would fight for him no less than they had for his father. Eventually, his eyes focused again and he turned in a slow circle, meeting each of their eyes for a few moments, reinforcing the connection now surging between them.
"Come. There is work to be done... and our people to be seen home."
And with no more direction than that, with a synchronicity they could not have imagined before but did not question at all now, the thirteen survivors turned to begin their labor.
All around her warriors fought valiantly, felling foe after for with their graceful, twirling blades and deceptively light arrows. But this was the final push of a mad and desperate leader, one who had suffered grand successes but also withering defeats, one that didn't know how to cope with either. The war hadn't been quite a stalemate, but it never teetered long in either direction, and he was clearly through with waiting for what he considered his just rewards. Their kingdom lay over desirable grounds, with teeming rivers, lush forests, and grand fields everywhere; now the forests were half-gone, trees felled for kindling and siege weapons, the rivers carried body fragments and poisoned fish, and the fields were soaked with blood. The warriors she fought beside were stronger, mightier than any of their foes, fighting in defense of their homeland and their lives.
But their foes were much greater in number.
For every fifth enemy a warrior cut down, a sixth would appear with a blade in just the right place. For every twenty an archer eliminated, a twenty-first's arrow would find an exposed face or neck. The final act of a mad tyrant had pulled his entire thuggish army to face the remainders of what hadn't been a large force to begin with, even if they had been exceptionally well-trained, and any loses were acceptable to him whereas none were acceptable to his opponents. There was no possibility for or even hope of mercy; all of the fighters knew that surrender would only bring death. Even as she fought and parried, driving their serrated blades from her side, she saw Tolven collapse, face twisted in pain as his enemy carved through his gut. Behind him, Cartheliel was fighting for her life against three opponents, her blades a whirling cacophony of destruction as the razor-sharp edges met flesh again and again. Beyond her-
She gasped. It wasn't possible, it couldn't happen...
Her leader, her king, his great sword singing in the air around him, had found his opponent, the misshapen monster that had begun all of this, trapped villagers in their homes to burn, slew the queen and the noncombatants of the palace when they had been caught trying to escape to safety from the oncoming force, and was facing him in single combat. But even as she watched, her own opponents dead and herself with a brief respite, the dishonor of their enemy was obvious as the leader roared something in their strange growling language. Without warning, without heed, the monsters nearest her king turned, ignoring their previous foes and all their blades driving for his back, neck, and sides, and she cried aloud, trying in vain to warn him though it was impossible for him to hear her over the din of the battle.
But her king was no fool, and as soon as the yell began he had swept his blade in a great arc around himself, nearly five feet of tempered metal an effective barrier to close-range attacks, turning to face this new attack from his flank. His son, her friend the prince, not twenty feet beyond, broke free of his own melee and started shoving through the combatants in an attempt to reach his father, mouth open in a warning just as hers was. The warriors who had been fighting the monsters that had turned on the king didn't relax, lunging after their former opponents as well. A sword hit, biting into an arm and driving the blow off; an arrow, grabbed from a nearby corpse, was shoved through the soft spot at the base of a skull and the enemy collapsed in a heap then and there; a dagger was thrown with wicked accuracy, severing tendons in the back of a knee and sending the monster crashing to the ground. Blood was everywhere, mixed with the dull brown-black of the enemy armor and the silvery green of their own, coating everything, hair and eyes and hands and it didn't matter anymore because the king, the king-
The enemy leader's blade found its mark as his back was turned, a wide, grinning snarl on his face as the point found the one small section of unprotected skin in the back of her king's armor. His face froze in shock as he was speared from behind, mouth open in a small gasp, and even from so far away she could see his eyes contracting in shock. Sound seemed to drop away from the world, the battle fading around her as a hoarse scream ripped from her throat at the sight of her king, almost her father, with a blade through his stomach, the tip not able to break through the armor on his front but having dented the metal next to his spine with the force of the blow. She felt rather than saw her friends, her comrades, echo her cry as the feeling of their king's mortality hit each and every one of them, knocking them senseless for moments they couldn't afford. Shadowy echoes of the same pain of nothingness, the same ones that had been coming more and more quickly the entire battle, bloomed behind her eyes as the enemy took advantage of their distraction, dozens of lives falling under their blades in the space of seconds.
She herself only came out of her daze barely in time to catch the sword headed for her neck with the hilt of her dagger; as it was, she still sustained a slash above her wrist that only missed her tendons by sheer luck before burying her other dagger in the creature's gut. She ignored the wound, wrenched her blade free, and began sprinting over the fighting ground to her king's body as all others who could were doing; another wound in this day would not matter much to her. She was already caught between shock and the body surge that would keep her going long after she should have dropped; there was no time to give into pain now, if she wanted to survive the day. But with her king dead, did she truly want to?
That was when she felt it: a wave of fire through her, starting low and quickly simmering high, a heat that boiled in her blood like liquid starlight and fueled her movements, driving her faster across the field that was starting to bleach. She paid little attention to the colors leeching out of everything around her, turning the bodies into statues and the blades into mirrors, all her attention focused on reaching the king. His son had arrived first, and she watched as his sword found the leader's neck, severing his head from his shoulders with a yell she couldn't hear. The corpse fell next to the king, the removed head bouncing off among the clawed feet of the enemy as they cowered from the loss of color, those at the edges of the battle turning to run. Dimly, she realized the loss of color was actually only a symptom. As she watched the prince collapse next to his father, bringing his head onto his knees, he and the king both glowed brighter and brighter, their skin becoming shimmering silver and their eyes turning to molten, shining steel. She shoved a brute out of the way and it screamed in pain as her hands left it; apparently the light was anathema to them, painful even. More and more turned to flee as the remaining warriors converged on the point where the king had fallen, their hair and armor starting to smoke, their blades dropping to the ground as the pain overtook their minds and reduced them down to the few self-preservation instincts they had remaining.
When she reached the king, she was somehow not amazed to see that he was still alive, even though that couldn't last for more than a few minutes. Their only healer left couldn't treat a wound of that magnitude, one that was surely already poisoning the inside of his body if the blade itself hadn't already done that, as they tended to coat their swords to make their victims' suffering as painful as possible. Even through the silver light shining from their remaining people his skin was white, white with pain, blood loss, and the effort of magic - a talent not given to many among their people, but as the king, he had a right to more than most, even if it still wasn't enough to save his life. There were words coming from his lips, words she couldn't hear, but judging from their lips his son was speaking with him, coaching his father or reinforcing him she couldn't tell. The light built, the heat inside grew until even she could feel a tingling on her skin that began growing painful, purifying her, burning her from the inside out-
-and around them all, everything exploded in silver light.
Her eyes instinctively shut so she wouldn't be blinded as the energy poured over her, the most she'd ever felt from one spell casting. The most she'd ever felt, ever, even if she'd taken all the other castings and added them together. She had to grab onto the person next to her to keep from falling under that onslaught and he clutched at her in return, their boots slipping in the blood-slicked dirt beneath them but the stickiness of the mess helping them stay upright. Several moments passed before the magic subsided, stealing her breath away with it, and both of them fell as their bodies went weak and limp as their vitality was sucked out of them by whatever their king had done. She didn't mind; whatever it was, it had been to help them, to save them, and it seemed to have worked since no one was driving a dagger into her skull as she lay on the ground.
There was no telling how long she lay there on the torn-up ground, breathing deeply to try and feel something like life again in her limbs. Seconds passed, or maybe days, before a hand touched her shoulder gently; long, slim, straight fingers, the fingers of one of her people. The hand helped her to sit up, steadied her against a thankfully warm body, and she opened her eyes to find Nibenglor supporting her, pushing the mud-splattered hair from her eyes so she could see. A worn nod of thanks was all she could give before her friend tilted his head toward the king, not saying a word into the strange silence that had fallen around them all.
"It is done." Thranduil's voice was a thin mockery of its former self; deep, rich, and commanding before, it had been reduced to thready and breathless as he struggled to breath. His head still rested in Legolas' lap; only the two of them seemed to have been untouched by the explosion, perhaps because they had been casting the spell themselves. "I do not... know... what will happen now," he continued slowly, all eyes focused on his face. "An old spell, that was... known only to my... my line... to grant one, one wish."
"Adar, lie still," Legolas whispered, brushing the long platinum hair from his father's face.
The king could not even manage to shake his head, only blink in protest. He drew breath, which turned into a weak cough as it caught halfway down his throat. "No time. You must..." Coughing again, Thranduil managed to turn his head enough to not let the drops of blood flying from his mouth hit his son. "You must swear," he gasped when he could speak again, "you all must swear, to pro... protect our home. That was... my wish, and I know it is y-yours as well. You would... not have fought half... so well if it was not..."
"I swear." "And I." "As you wish it, my liege." Voices rose around her, not nearly as many as there should have been, tying themselves by spoken oath to their king's dying wish. She joined her vow to the others, and as she did, the last of the tingling burned turned sideways within her, locking itself in place and joining to something outside herself with a warmth she had not expected. Around her, there were suddenly almost physical flares of life-sense in a ragged circle: the survivors of the battle, twelve others, too few by far, now much closer to her in spirit than they had ever been before. A small awareness of her companions and notice of their deaths had changed to a sense of location, a sense of well-being and stability, and she wondered for a fleeting moment if it would always be this way from now on or if the new sensation would gradually revert back to the previous standard.
Thranduil breathed a soundless sigh of relief, his expression relaxing into one almost of ease as he slowly closed his eyes. "Thank you all. There are no more... of them... here now. What else... will hap...happen I know... not." He spoke more and more slowly as the life drained out of him, but his own determination would not let him stop while he could still draw breath. "It is a des...perate... spell. I only... hope... it is... able... to save you..."
Legolas slipped his hand into his father's, squeezing it lightly to reassure him. "I will look after them, Adar."
"My... son." Opening his eyes once more, his voice weaker than ever, the king could barely manage to turn his head the few degrees it took to bring the prince into his view. "So like... your..."
The light in his eyes finally went dark as Thranduil lost his battle with his injuries, his life pooled below him in sticky reddish-brown. The King of the Wood would breath no more.
Legolas bowed his head over his father's, the others following suit, no one stirring even as thunder began to ripple in the air above them. Several minutes later, the prince - now king - lowered his father to the ground and summoned the survivors with just a look, younger than his father but no less commanding. The magic had healed the wounds every one of them had acquired, but was unable to restore the lost blood to their bodies or take away the immediate effects of the battle-shock, and many of them had to help each other to their feet, some remaining leaning against each other even as they surveyed their lands. Nibenglor remained next to her, the two of them propping each other up as their failed to hide their surprise.
The magic had done its job, and done it well; not only were living enemies nowhere to be seen, but the dead ones had disappeared as well. Most likely the light had burned them to ashes, judging by the piles littering the field as far out as they could see, the magic as hurtful to the corpses as it had been to the living beings. Blood was still everywhere, but their own dead were both easier and harder to look at, because they had been restored to the glory of their life in that pulsing wave of energy. Not a cut, not a wound could be seen on any of them, and if it hadn't been for the unnatural positions several of them had fallen in and the frozen expressions of surprise and pain on many faces, they could have been sleeping.
"There," Cartheliel suddenly spoke into the silence, drawing one of her last arrows from her quiver and nocking it to her bow. Eyes followed the arrow tip to the treeline, where a shadowy figure moved behind the trunks, trying to stay out of range. But even as it tried to traverse a space between trees, a wide space that would have given Cartheliel a clear shot at it, it was shoved back into the underbrush, sparks igniting between it and the group. A faint scream reached their ears even at the far distance. Or possibly it was the stinging shriek of the spell, actively and angrily protecting them from the intruders that would take the land's remaining children.
Legolas' eyes narrowed slightly, silently considering for several minutes as the rest waited for him. Even with the new awareness of her friends and kin, she could not read what was going through his mind, and would never discover what had been his focus at that time. But as king now, he held the service they all willingly granted him, and they would fight for him no less than they had for his father. Eventually, his eyes focused again and he turned in a slow circle, meeting each of their eyes for a few moments, reinforcing the connection now surging between them.
"Come. There is work to be done... and our people to be seen home."
And with no more direction than that, with a synchronicity they could not have imagined before but did not question at all now, the thirteen survivors turned to begin their labor.
