"Rite of Passage" (Guild forum fiction - Part 1)

[The Covenant]

The Tower of Jericho was a quiet man. He had spent the last few moons wandering in the frozen wastes of the Shiverpeak mountains and had maintained a close eye on the Dwarves. They had embraced him with their hospitality in his earlier years and that, somehow, made these normally cold peaks, bring a strange warmth in his heart. The word was out that the Keep was under siege and the King overthrown. Stories told at night described a menace that resembled a Drake....its rider as cold-hearted as the ice that surrounded the Keep. When the Tower had arrived in the foot-hills of the Dwarven Citadel he found many adventurers about to embark on this perilous trip, many as experienced and weathered as he was. What managed to strike grief in his though was the equal amount of warriors that was returning from the same mission. Some had the scars to show on their bodies and faces, but their eyes hid the scars of a broken spirit. Some said that the heroes defending the Keep were overwhelmed by the traitorous White Mantle and the mystic race that dictated all the moves that the White Mantle made, the creatures only known as the Mursaat. The heroes indeed described ferocious battles, only to finish their stories with them facing overwhelming odds, and the healers, people scarce to find due to the knowledge and expertise they had, were hard to find. Something needed to be done.

Every battle starts in the mind. Jericho considered this as he was trying to see why all the other other expeditions had failed. From the stories he heard over a few mugs of Dwarven Ale, he found that most groups failed for similar reasons if not for bad luck, for luck often graces the bold if their courage remains true in battle. The things that he heard lead him to three assumptions. The first was that most of these heroes preferred to go with an experienced healer, rather than two of the mercenaries that usually lingered in town. Usually the mercenaries were often underestimated and were quick to be frowned upon...even their superb skills however might not be enough to keep the frontlines in the battle. The horrors the Mursaat brought with them were enough to strike fear into anyone. Animated fiends with nearly impervious armor, fearless and single minded automatons, called Jade armours with only one sole purpose…to subdue the enemies of their creators.

The solution presented itself in a morbid fashion. In the morning, after exiting his tent, he caught with the corner of his eye an image, most of the peasants would feel was intolerable. He observed a Necromancer trying to mend a fallen comrade using her unholy power...then it occurred to him that Necromancers could heal themselves while damaging the ranks of the enemy. These outcasts have in the past made formidable companions...maybe this self-reliance the profession presented could indeed come in handy, especially for the healers to concentrate on the warriors. While he was paying attention to the female necromancer, another one of them approached him silently from behind. He turned around to see two hollow eyes staring at him as if guessing his thoughts. The marks that have been carved on the young necromancers body made most people flinch in disgust. He, however, kept staring at the Tower. Not a single word was uttered but in a few hours those two would find themselves in the same position as they were at that precise moment. Nekrothaftis had sensed the brewing storm and he would make sure to meet them for this ‘event’, unleashing the wrath of the underworld with all the might the Grenth granted him.

The second thing he noticed is that the groups always had difficulty coordinating since they had a tendency of splitting the forces twofold trying to stop the forces of the enemy entering the Keep from the two gates. The story was reiterated over and over again…”we fought bravely but we were outnumbered 2 to1….we did not stand a chance….”….Jericho knew the layout of the citadel well. He had played during his early years in the safety of these walls , walls he found now were keeping not the dwarves but their enemies, sheltered. It was true that the obvious choice would be to guard the two gates. The good Vizier had “stationed” there some specters to avoid unwanted guests. These lost souls of the White Mantle fallen would finally make amends for the damaged caused when they were alive. The secret though lied in the throne room. There were four staircases that led to the Kings Throne. It was also true, King Ironhammer was weak in his state. The attack on his homeland had left him torn with guilt, but the old ruler was still a force to be reckoned with, in the battlefield.

Jericho called for a young elementalist named Marodac Evilbane to help him block of the waves of enemy forces. Marodac during times of peace, would often sit among the children and use of the powers he possessed to make items move using small jolts of electricity or make flames appear out of thin air, making the younglings scream from delight and laughter. In the field though the elementalist showed another face not often seen, but by the few that accompanied him…Jericho was having flashbacks about how the sheer force of the lightning that was harnessed, would leave charred corpses in its wake and leave him with an awful smell of sulfur and burned flesh, combined with the hairs on his arms raising from the remaining electricity in the air. Although slender in built sometimes this unnatural talent would make men twice his size cower before him, and, the little grin he always had on his face.

The small group consisted of Jericho, Marodac,a small female monk named Miss Gags, and Nekrothaftis, the weaver of dark spells and magicks. Miss was always a welcome addition to the group for her skill in healing was only surpassed by her caustic humor. Whatever she lacked in size, nearly standing half as tall as Jericho, she made up in personality. The little monk clad in bright red, was the fuel that kept this war machine functioning…And if her skills would not suffice, her taunts towards the other skill members would drive them back into battle. The Tower remembered a fight outside of Old Ascalon where he was injured and paused from the battle. The little monk was fast to comment how he had probably fell asleep in the middle of the fight, using his helmet’s visor to muffle his snoring. Marodac still assumed that half the Charr patrol that got wiped out that day, was due to the fact that Jericho was visualizing bashing the cheery monk with his war hammer mentally, instead of the enemy, in order to get even.

To cover the remaining forces they summoned some of the necromancers’ dark brethren to fill the ranks and two of the resident healers. The three Necros looked like a sight to behold with an aura of unholy power surrounding them. Eager to fight, and frowned upon by most prejudiced groups, their ability to cause concentrated damage from a distance while healing their war injuries was exactly what Tower of Jericho wanted. He overheard the necromancers talk about the battle scars inflicted upon them with such pride, that a flicker of a smile formed on his eyes. In these grim times, they would need all the morale they could muster. They eight walked towards the foothills of the citadel and looked ahead. The battle that would follow would claim theirs or their comrades lives.

[The Covenant]

As she looked around, the smoke and heat made her eyes water. She was leaning against her knees still looking forward with both hands slumping over downwards, each falling down clenching to a fist. The white skin had been stained with ash and blood and her eyes glimmered with rage, rage which manifested itself with a sorrowful laughter accompanied with tears of despair…She had failed.…The once bright red attire, had now looked a deep brown from her blood and that of her fallen companions. She kept staring at her clenched fists, with hardly the strength left to even pray to Dwayna for the salvation of her fallen comrades’ souls. Miss Gags was now staring at the result of the last assault. The enemies that had at first broken upon their line as waves brake, against a wall in the entrance of a port, were now free to send the remaining reinforcements to finish the last defenders that where still breathing. Jericho had lost consciousness from what seemed uncontrollable bleeding, arrows poking out or his steel armor in so many places it reminded her of flowers growing on mountain rocks. No joke would make him able to move now she thought…

Marodac was leaning with his back against a wall, having difficulty inhaling from the exhaustion of his last spell, his breath forming like mist with every puff that met the piercing frost…he turned his gaze at the one of the staircases now blocked with the bodies of the three White Mantle zealots. He only saw the first one approaching in the beginning. At that point he heard a heart-chilling scream the made him stop cold. It seemed to him that the image that followed had made time run in a manner that made everything looked like it was taking place in slow motion. Jericho’s hammer had smashed the skull of the savant so hard that the neck had snapped giving it an unnatural and disgusting angle. That swing however had left the big fool exposed to the two seekers arrows; arrows that where now making the way with deadly accuracy towards the warrior…he fell…Marodac could only watch the morbid scene. The feelings swelled like a storm in his chest. That….would….NOT…go unpunished. It was at that precise moment he saw his enemies at the stairwell… The brute force of revenge that was summoned, terrified even him. The lightning came outwards and made a sound so immense the narrow stone corridor started coming down upon them…or what was left of them. The lightning had so much power it arced from the first intruder to the two that were following him. Their armor and flesh burned together becoming inseparable. Their eyes had disappeared melting away in the heat, leaving only empty hollow sockets in their stead to look at the young elementalist, for he was the last thing they would see in their miserable lives. He leaned against the wall drained…

On the other stairwell, Nekrothaftis was fighting silently his own battle. The corpses his companions “provided” had pleased Grenth. The dead were now following his bidding, blocking off all passage to the Mantle…he heard only the screams of the white knights as their own fallen friends, had returned to rip them apart in a bloodstained frenzy. The terror in their eyes was indescribable, their morale broken. The other two necromancers the companions had taken with them, had fallen…He felt no sorrow for his empty gaze did not see loss, only opportunity…their blood and magic where now infused within him. That…was why he was still holding up unlike the rest of them…even he felt, however, his power draining away slowly though…he was fine for the moment but his God required sacrifice from his followers. A sacrifice in blood…He just wished that the others were doing better than he was…his blank gaze unwavering he bared his teeth and raised his arms, preparing himself…..

The king was defending his throne, fighting a battle with no end. For every Mantle foot-soldier he killed, two sprung to replace him. The companions had left the two hired healers to watch over the king and those two together, barely could keep up with him, as the old Thane was dealing with overwhelming odds. They had no energy left, they were hurt and started realizing that their decision to join the companions might have sealed their fate…They failed to see how Miss Gags could possibly sustain the other three adventurers on her own, but they knew that neither of them had even half the talent of the slender monk, nor the Goddess’s favor, for the monk was truly blessed.

Gags had crawled next to Jericho and stared at the wounds. The Warrior would die all alone. Not even his wolf would be there for his master’s death, as the beast had left them and disappeared into the night before they entered the citadel. Jericho loved that wolf like a brother, for he was a tireless companion, both crossing the mountains paths together with the same ease as the wind blows through trees. The wolf was an uncanny beast with the others often listening the warrior saying that the wolf had found him, not the other way around. Its intelligence was only matched by his ferociousness and size. The wolf was a guardian spirit for the warrior and they had both bled and emerged victorious more times than could easily be counted… The pet was gone though and the master would soon be in place beyond reach for any of them.

Marodac had collapsed the corridor he was looking after, with bodies and ruble. He kept his arm leaning across the wall as he made his way to the centre of the room where Miss was sitting, beaten in spirit, next to a dying Jericho. He looked at the monk and placed an arm of comfort on her shoulder. Nekrothaftis faced this image as he left the last undead under his command to guard the eastern corridor, and entered the main hall…there was a fallen whisper in the air that unsettled him, but the necromancer walked over and gave both his hands to help the monk on her feet…he pointed at an unlit beacon in the entrance of the hall…carved in blue metal and black marble it looked like a cradle, big enough to fill a man lying down, with two small staircases on the left and right, where the Dwarven light-bearers would climb those four steps to light it, it stood out like dark tribute to the fallen warriors of old…his cold gaze lingered on the monk…she looked up and their eyes locked, as they both nodded to each other with a silent understanding. Marodac stepped outside leaving these two, and saw something that made his heart stop. Confessor Dorian, the Mantle’s high priest himself was standing alone in the middle of the courtyard. The mage, known for his control over the element of ice, ice that was as cold as it was solid and unforgivingl, as his authority over the White Mantle, was casting a spell to bury them all alive by causing an avalanche…

The two carried Jericho and placed his heavy body inside the beacon…the warrior had passed to the other side. The stared at each other and they started both whispering to their God’s, one for mercy and one for revenge. Their arms raised slowly towards the heavens and the aura around each one started materializing…White glow embraced the monk as she was praying her eyes closed and her head turned towards the heavens, a dark mystic force surrounded the necromancer as his whispers turned his eyes red as the blood he took his power from, his arm placed upon his fallen companion…..The energy accumulation was insane for them to be maintained. Both suddenly directed their blessings and curses towards the warrior… Light and Darkness met. The energy united and both were thrown backwards from its force.

The two stumbled to their feet and slowly climbed the small steps to look inside the pedestal. Jericho stood unmoving, as he did before. The monk nodded to herself and her eyes dropped to the ground. The Necromancer however kept his gaze on the corpse… He felt something was not right. These two energies were not meant to unite. Something was terribly wrong… He felt afraid…took a step backwards. Miss looked at him and wondered what could spook him…As he moved backwards she took a step forward coming nearer to the pedestal. She stopped dead in her tracks.

Jericho’s eyes opened. There was something amiss however. The warriors eye were not the warm hazel brown color they normally were, but a solid black color as the depths of the abyss itself. The warrior moved in a slow and cold way and knelt in the altar… Marodac returned to find both the companions staring at this “thing” in the pedestal both too numb too even move. This was not Jericho. This was something else. As all three approached him, a silent, resolute voice came from deep within the once dead warrior.

“There is one more thing that needs doing.” “The gods are eager to see the tide of this battle…….Marodac...now it’s your turn”. The young elementalist had returned to warn the rest about Dorian. It seems that they were already aware about the brewing ‘storm’. He felt the urge to call upon lightning and thunder and it was a call he could not resist answering…Soon though…

They all stepped in the courtyard facing the Confessor…the monk, necromancer and elementalist stood a few steps behind the resurrected warrior. Marodac felt magic rushing though his veins…How could this be? He had not consciously started casting a spell but his hands and lips were moving none the less….His body started elevating inches of the ground marking the near end of the spell… At that precise moment the warrior swung his hammer, slammed it on the cold ground creating a tremor that reverberated in the heart of the mountains. He raised his hammer in the with one arm and lightning stroke at that precise moment directly at him…The companions stood still, shook deep from the image that they just witnessed. The hammer was glowing white…

He took a few steps, which in turn changed to a fast pace and than into full running. The charge was that of a stampede, and he kept running closing the distance charged by the three most awesome powers known in Ascalon. White magic, Dark incantations and the power of the heavens, now united with his physical might to create an unstoppable power…a power that was charging straight into the Confessor.

The armored warrior leaped in the air with both palms grasping his mighty war-hammer. Dorian saw inevitability heading towards him, as the power of all four companions was now united, with a sole purpose… to bring him, and his followers, down… The earth shook…

[Talin04]

Wow, I thought I had talent...lol. Very well written, and a wonderful story...kicks the crap out of mine

[The Covenant]

I m really pleased you enjoyed my story Talin...Even if a single person replies and says that they liked it its enough reward for the writer to make it worth while..Thank you for your kind words...

Cov

[benmanhaha]

I really liked it. I think it could have had more closure though. I wanted to know what happens after the battle. And what about jericho's wolf, where'd he go? Overall though, i really liked it.

[The Covenant]

The closure although a bit short, stayed like that to leave a "striking" image in mind... You are right however that an epilogue would not have gone amiss... ... The wolf in the story plays a part at later point as the beast has a good reason to dissappear...Not to worry however for his fate will be soon known... ...Thank you for you kind words and input