Wars of Ascendance - Part 1

Chapter I

If there is any lesson that we might learn from that ancient race we now call Dar it is this: they were subject to the same virtues and vices, deserving of the same glory and blame, that we are today.

Excerpt from Phian's Account of Time

Gedorik coughed into his fist. It was more a ragged hack than a cough, and not for the first time the man wondered if this winter would be his last. He was not old, and years of rough living in the northern reaches had toughened him. Yet, for all that, this winter had proved exceptionally harsh and bitter, it's icy fingers continued to grip the land at a time when the snow and ice should have been melting and yielding to fairer weather. Fur trapping in this weather was dangerous, but Gedorik had needed the money: an unnaturally long winter meant buying extra provisions for his larder.

The trapper hawked and spat a wad of phlegm, it steamed in the frigid air and made a dark circle in the snow. Fortunes about to change, though. Thedoran brought me a contact who's willing to pay enough gold that I can get out of this damn cold for ten winters. Gedorik's eyes narrowed, unless he was mistaken he had just heard the first crunching footfalls of his unexpected windfall. The snow creaked and cracked in the distance again, the crumpling snow was underscored by a sharp metallic rustling. The hunter nodded, that had to be his man, Thedoran had said he always wore a suit of full plate.

The fur trader brought up a gloved hand to wipe at his eyes and turned to face the direction of the footsteps. Snow played odd tricks with sound, but this individual was making no effort to be stealthy; Gedorik didn't even know if such a thing was possible while wearing so many stones worth of metal. When the trapper first caught sight of his contact he sucked in a sharp breath of bracing air, his reaction rewarded him with another fit of shuddering coughs. The woodsman thudded a fist to his chest and looked up at the approaching figure again. His eyes were long trained to take in even the most minute of details, it was one of the essential skills of a hunter, but the armor the warrior wore went beyond ornate. An overwhelming motif of wings seemed to be the dominating feature of the metalworking: the helm sporting two overlapping pair, the vambraces along the forearms had one apiece, two swooped from the pauldron on the knight's right-hand side, and finally the faulds of the armor itself were worked into a pair of glistening wings that flowed down nearly to the knees.

It all seemed a bit excessive to the simple hunter, but it assured him of his contact's wealth. A suit of elaborate plate such as the man wore was something only a lord could afford, and one to whom money was not an issue. Gedorik could have a small piece of that, a minute fraction, and all he had to do was answer a question. The frozen ground ceased groaning, and the swordsman stood before him, he had not removed his helm, and Gedorik could not see a single scrap of flesh through all the wrought metal and overlapping protection of the armor. The hunter cleared his throat, an action which nearly brought on another coughing fit. After regaining his composure, he bowed deeply and said, "Welcome m'lord, I hope--"

"We'll cut the shit." The figure said with a grunt. "I'm no lord, just a man with a plush contract from some southland noble who's too afraid and too fat to go out into the world himself for his business."

For a few heartbeats Gedorik's voice refused to function, he worked his jaws open and shut before sputtering out, "Damn Thedoran told me I was dealing with someone of high birth. Still, your liege has got to pay well to put you in kit like that. Name's Gedorik."
The figure barked a laugh, the sound oddly hollow from within the great helm. "I know, Thedoran told me as much, I met him a week ago to the south. Did he tell you what my business is?"

"He says you're interested in the Ebony Spur, though not why."

"I'm not as glamorous as you might think, Gedorik. I'm not even a knight, notice my lack of a horse? My job is simple, I go about collecting bits of history for my liege-lord: potsherds, fragments of artifacts, curios, just about anything I can get my hands on. Of course, he's interested in the most ancient and rare stuff, and therefore the most valuable. It's not a trade without its hazards: old traps, beasts and bandits, and unstable ruins to name a few. Still, he's the one that gave me the suit of armor and the means to do whatever it takes to get my hands on what he wants, and he wants what's inside this Ebony Spur."

Gedorik slowly nodded as the figure spoke. He's just another warm coin for his master to spend. No different from me, from any of us. "You're in luck, then, as this is the closest I ever come to the Spur. It's a few hours walk due north, should be able to easily make it before sundown, if you get lost there's a stream - frozen of course - that'll guide you to just a little to the west of it. Like the name, it's a big spike of black rock, you'd have to be blind to miss it in all this white."

The self-proclaimed treasure-hunter nodded, steel grating against steel. "You're brave to get this close, ever been inside?"

The hunter shook his head.

"Just as well, my work has a lot of dangers. You've upheld your end of the bargain, so I'll uphold mine." The warrior reached down and pulled a small pouch from underneath the faulds of his armor. He gave the bag a heft before tossing it to Gedorik, who caught it deftly and weighed it in his own hands before smiling.

"Lot of money for something a lot of folks could probably tell you."

The figure nodded. "A precaution. Right now, their fear keeps them away from this old tower. It's a former Dar ruin, you know? There's a lot of history with the Dar in these lands, but little of it survives, and much of what does carries the stigma of sorcery and curses. Still, if I go in there and make a . . . discovery . . . and word gets out, well it wouldn't be the first time men have let their thirst for riches override their common sense. The coin I gave you didn't just buy me directions--"

"It bought my silence." Gedorik finished with another smile. "You don't need to worry, I understand."
"Good, then our business is concluded. Farewell Gedorik, go and enjoy someplace warm."
Gedorik intended to do just that.

Chapter II

Hopes are paving stones on disappointment's road.

Final line of Lathanor's Lament

A steel-shod foot slipped across ice, and Ardwen muttered a curse. His breath caught in the frosty air, turning into mist before it thinned and vanished. It was getting colder. The Dar had removed his great helm as he was far away from his hunter informant by now. He had known about the Spur, one of the few remnants of his people's works this far north, but the exact directions had eluded him. He had never been there. Even in the days of the height of the Empire, this land had always been a parochial backwater. Isolated, sparsely populated, and bereft of any notable natural resources beyond lumber and fur, the land had remained untamed in the ensuing centuries.

Still, the venerable warrior reflected, the humans who had come after had made some use of it. While there was only one permanent settlement north of the Otar River, fur trapping and trading posts had begun sprouting up all across the land, even this far north. Ardwen sucked in a lungful of frigid air and stilled his thoughts, this was all irrelevant, a list of meaningless facts and obscure history that he reviewed again and again to still his thoughts.

He had lied to Gedorik. He wasn't moving north to loot the Spur, he had no interest in pieces of crumbling antiquity. Elerus had failed to appear at their designated place. He had never failed to appear there in some five millenia. Ardwen might have left it to chance: once in five-thousand years was certainly excusable. However, while his former blade-brother had failed to appear, someone had been there. Someone had left a note, someone had made a demand. The friend who he had taken in breaths with for as long as his memory endured was being held hostage, used as bait.

Ardwen knew what he was walking towards. A trap, an ambush, though who had the audacity or resources to orchestrate all this escaped the ancient warrior's mind. They had no enemies, the Dar had no enemies, his were not a race in twilight or decline, they were dead - maybe a handful of survivors scattered across an entire continent. To the teeming masses of humanity that now built their cities on top of the bones of his people they were not even that: they were legends and myths, tales told to scare unruly children or to display an alderman's knowledge on a feast night. The swordsman did not even think they were popular tales, there were other things more interesting to hear than the story of a failed people.

None of this matters, Ardwen snarled at himself. He would find Elerus, he would kill whoever had done this, and everything would be fine. It was that simple, so many elaborate plans could be undone by the liberal application of direct violence. The figure inside the Ebony Spur, whoever it was, had doubtless overestimated himself, but that was an advantage. Perhaps he imagined Ardwen might be reasoned with, perhaps he imagined that he might be bargained with. He was not interested in riches, or power, or fame, or anything than the life of wandering and the company of his one friend. No, he was too old to care about anything else.

Old, yes, but in a body that did not age. One of the dubious blessings of his blood.
The Spur finally appeared before him, a black smear jutting upward from white, like a shattered bone piercing flesh. Ardwen coughed roughly and spat to his side before sliding his helm back on, his breath caused the metal near the edge of the visor to sweat. True to its name the entire tower was a solid and uniform ebony, but not without flaws. Wane sunlight glinted off its sides; the tower's stone veneer had worn away in many places, leaving a rough and marred surface that reflected sickly light. In antiquity it must have been smooth, flawless, absolute sable even on the brightest of days. The central spire of the tower had collapsed, leaving a jagged opening rimmed in frost and snow, yet two smaller ancillary spires still remained intact.

An open field of featureless snow was all that surrounded the black tower, even the trees receded before reaching its sides. Ardwen hated the thing the instant he laid eyes upon it. It was impractical as a military installation, and was doubtless originally built to boost the ego of some long-forgotten marcher lord in the annals of imperial history. Constructed without purpose, it had simply loomed in the mists as the ages rolled away. It reminded him too much of himself. Shaking his head slowly, an action which caused his gorget to rub against his pauldrons and filled the clearing with the sound of metal against metal, he resumed walking. There was no reason to make a dramatic entry, age had long since rotted the wooden door to dust. The only evidence of a door that was left to be seen was the slight discoloration of the stone around some empty holes, places where the hinges had rusted away.

The warrior frowned before entering, the display completely hidden by his helm. A single longblade winked into existence in his left hand. The sword was given shape and form by his will, gifted with existence by an act of conscious effort. There was no reason to hold back. Ardwen wanted to make this a surgical strike, swift and efficient. He took his first steps down the entry corridor, boots sending hollow echoes off the damp walls. The swordsman suddenly leaned against a wall, a sharp crack snapped through the air. Did I trip? The thought was quickly discarded, no, he had not stumbled.

     Kneeling down, the light from the entryway glinted on a quarrel, across the hallway from which was an alcove angled to be invisible to those walking in from the outside. Ardwen quickly found the broken tripwire a few heartbeats later, it was a simple trap, simple yet deadly. A crossbow quarrel could easily punch through flesh and even most armor at close range. The Dar knight scooped up the weapon, he noticed it had a steel prod, and was definitely a newer weapon than its surroundings. Someone inside was expecting him.

Ardwen paused, this whole situation was beginning to offend him. He could either continue to plod along the hallways, carefully avoiding traps and dead-ends, exactly as his hostile host intended, or he could try for an element of shock and awe. The warrior looked down at the crossbow in his right hand, and an idea began to slowly take root in his mind. It wasn't much of a plan, but then again, Elerus had always been the one for complex stratagems and tactics, anything larger than a duel failed to retain Ardwen's interests. The knight fingered the hilt of his blade, and came to a decision. A solitary footfall, then another, and another, faster and faster, and the warrior had burst into a run. That in and of itself wasn't novel. What was novel was the speed and duration he could maintain. Long ago, when the border wars between the Dar and humanity had been raging to the east, the Empire had lacked the critical advantage of cavalry. Horses were utterly unknown to the Dar, a creature imported and mastered by their enemy.

However, the Dar had their advantages, not enough to win the war perhaps, but they were edges they learned to leverage. Foremost among those was the inhuman and alien physiology. Stronger, faster, and with a greater tolerance to injury, the Empire had clad many of its greatest warriors in suits of armor far heavier than even the vaunted lancers of their foes. The protection of the armor, however, was not its primary purpose. The purpose was that a Dar could still move swiftly while encased in it. The contradiction of something so massive moving so rapidly was a powerful weapon on the battlefield, not just for the direct impact, but for the fear and panic it caused. Ardwen recalled several battles where enemy ranks had broken at the sight of an Imperial heavy infantry charge. Their comrades must have been appalled at their cowardice shortly before realizing they were the smart ones.

Ardwen swiftly made progress down the hallway, there were no more traps. There was, however, light. Leaking out from around a corner, flickering and orange, it would seem the Dar swordmaster had stumbled upon the tower's occupant, and the individual he had come to kill. The warrior turned a corner, his eyes swiftly took in the large chamber he had entered, the ceiling faded into shadow overhead, and the contour of the room hugged the circular shape of the tower. It was obviously the central chamber where, in times past, the individual given locum command would receive envoys and dispatch orders. The armor-clad blademaster also took in the individual near the far side of the chamber. Hair as dark as the tower stone pulled back tight along his scalp, a few strands hanging down his forehead, a tall figure, perhaps half a head taller than he was. Cloaked in deep blue robes trimmed in white, he possessed angular features, and cold blue eyes that stared down a patrician nose. However, what mattered to Ardwen in that single heartbeat of recognition was that this person was not Elerus.

That meant he was expendable.

In so far as Ardwen could tell, he had never met this other person before. Of course, it was not infeasible that they had previously encountered one another, who could remember five millennia of faces? Also, in as much as he could determine the figure was a Dar, the slanted ears were proof of his bloodline. The final, and perhaps most significant determination the bladeweaver could ascertain was that his foe was opening his mouth, presumably to speak. This error present an invaluable opportunity. Ardwen's blade flashed an upward arc, had his foe been a fraction of a second slower, the blow would have severed his throat. Instead, the warrior's blade glanced off a swiftly unsheathed sword.

The other Dar's eyes were wide with shock and outrage. In response, Ardwen yielded ground, backpedaling in an attempt to put distance between the two of them. It was a maneuver that flew in the face of Imperial sword technique, to cede ground to an enemy and thus momentum. The Dar knight, however, was not intent on making this a conventional fight. The armor-clad warrior's hand snapped out, and his blade flew through the air as he hurled it at his opponent. To his credit, Elerus's captor acted quickly, picking off the blade as it sailed through the air with his own. He was not so fortunate with the second one, it ripped through his right shoulder, slightly above the armpit.

The man's mouth opened in pain and shock, a shrill scream bounced from the tower's walls. With a savage tug he pulled the blade out, it was coated red for a third of its length. Ardwen grunted, the wound seemed to bother his adversary less than he would have liked. At the least, he shows proof of his bloodline, he is indeed Dar. It was unfortunate for the knight's foe, then, that he forgot to check behind him. The first blade that he had deflected ripped through his chest near his clavicle, the sword stuck two hand-lengths from his chest. Blades appearing out of thin air, levitating and flying through the air to strike down his foes, it was a common way to conclude a fight for Ardwen - it was what it meant to be a bladeweaver. The fact did nothing to lessen the twisted features and mewling whimpers of his foe, he had been caught unawares.

Ardwen took a few steps forward, crossbow raised and primed. "Wait," his wounded enemy sputtered, "Ardwen - mercy - don't you remember? Vasan? I can explain, I can save our--"
The bolt tore through his right eye, to the back of the socket where the bone was as thin as a leaf. It bored a gory hole through his brain before impacting the back of his skull; there the spring loaded flechettes on the quarrel blew out the base of his head. There was no final grunt of pain, no death spasm, Vasan simply collapsed like a sack full of stone. With the slightest mental gesture, Ardwen dismissed the blades he had summoned. They shimmered once, briefly, like clusters of tiny stars, before dissipating. The wizards of the Empire had often imagined themselves as the only ones who possessed unique, terrifying, talents, but the world was a wider and stranger place than they could ever imagine. Pity, then, that most - like Vasan - had never lived to see the error of their hubris.

The victorious swordsman frowned. Vasan had certainly been expecting him, he had recognized and named him despite the fact that he still wore his great helm. The Dar Knight now vaguely recalled his adversary, although when he had last heard of Vasan he had been nothing more than an apprentice under Sarthanir, the Domestic of the Academies. Time had apparently not instilled the younger Dar with a sense of prudence, nor had the dissolution of the Empire and the death of its people curbed his ambition. In a twisted way, Ardwen could understand his vanquished adversary: following the collapse of everything he had know, he too had made a desperate cause of finding something to cling to. While he could hardly account himself a patriot,  the whole tragedy had brought their entire race low. Vasan had not coped well, and now he had died for it. Perhaps, reflected Ardwen, this was a mercy.

Giving no more thought for the fallen mage, Ardwen began to pick his way through the tower. He found the inside in a state of utter disrepair. Several of the side hallways had collapsed, the timbered supports of the ceiling had rotted away and rendered their corridors impassable. Whatever work Vasan had been doing here, he had done it in apparent haste and with an almost fervent austerity. The only evidence of his habitation that Ardwen could find was a cot in a tiny ancillary room. From this point there was a trail of runes inscribed upon the floor, in plain white chalk, that lead down a narrow stairwell.

The going was cramped, and owing to the almost perpetually frozen ground, the chill in the air grew worse the further Ardwen descended. The walls were rimed, and the stairs soon grew slick with glasslike ice. He slowed his pace, pausing to let his eyes adjust to the gloom. The only light was provided by a handful of flickering candles, too few to even dispel the deep pools of shadow between them. Nevertheless, their presence alone was confirmation that this sublevel was the only other part of the structure that Vasan had employed. Candles were precious and expensive, their light would be wasted in vacant quarters. The chalked runes continued down the flight of stairs, the only company Ardwen had was the occasional dying candle, the only sound that accompanied him was the scrapping of his steel sabatons on stone as he descended.

Finally the Dar reached the bottom of the flight of stairs, which terminated into a short hallway with two doors, stained black from the stain of age. The twin doors were both on the right-hand side of the hallway. Pushing open the first one, Ardwen was greeted by another empty chamber, but this one bore traces of recent use. The trail of runes ended here, and it completed on a spectacular note: the final rune occupied the entire center of the room, ornate and complicated,  it was inlaid and filigreed with gold and silver. In stark contrast was a small shelf to the left of the door, tucked away quietly in the corner. The shelf held but a single book, a small journal. Absently, and thankful for his articulated gauntlets, Ardwen began to leaf through it. What confronted him was a confusing jumble of letters and nonsense, either this was written in no language he had ever seen, or the author had taken great pains in disguising what he had written with an elaborate cipher.

The warrior's eyes narrowed, his brow furrowed. As he looked more intently at the text, he realized the method of encryption might not be as sophisticated as he had first feared. His initial guess was that it was some sort of shift cipher, substituting the plaintext for a set number of shifts down the alphabet. The only question, then, was what was the number for the shift, was it a single letter, or more? Ardwen tucked the little book away, it might be useful later, but right now his top priority was finding Elerus.

The runic mosaic was certainly the epicenter of this chamber. It was also possibly the focus of Vasan's stay in this ancient ruin, but having no means to determine its purpose, Ardwen decided to move on. He had but one more room to open, and as he neared it, he paused. So far as he could determine this was the last remaining extant room in the Ebony Spur. Should Elerus not be located inside, then this entire venture would conclude in disaster. The venerable warrior did not regret killing Vasan, but retribution was not the reason he had come here. The swordsman clenched his right hand into a fist, gritted his teeth, and pushed on the door. Immediately, his heart sank, and cold fear - more frigid than even the northern winter outside - worked its way up his spine.

No protest issued from the door as it swung open, slowly. It had not been locked or secured in any way. No traps, no warning bells, nothing. If Elerus were imprisoned inside, his escape would have literally been as simple as walking out. Surely, even at the height of his arrogance, the dead mage would not have contemplated keeping a person against his will in an unlocked room? The concept was as absurd as a cage with no bars.

Stepping into the room, Ardwen felt as if he had been punched in the gut. The man sprawled on the floor was Elerus, he had found his battle-brother. He was not moving. The Dar rushed forward in a blur that beggared his earlier movements against Vasan. Elerus's long white hair was splayed across his face and floor, dirt and grime clung to it. Bruises, many old and faded to a pallid yellow, covered his body. He had been stripped of all personal affects, wearing a tattered pair of pants, even his shoes were missing. Hands shaking, Ardwen conjured a small dagger, its blade silvered and luminous even in the poor lighting. He held it beneath Elerus' nose, the blade faintly fogged. Dismissing the blade, the ancient Dar released his breath, the motion fraught his such tension that be visibly shook. Elerus was alive.

At that moment that Ardwen noticed the white wing, unnoticed in his earlier panic, coming from Elerus' back on his right side. The ancient warrior stopped breathing, the moment seemed to catch, time willfully stopping to preserve and extend the shock and fear. While the exact method was still an utter enigma to Ardwen, it was a sober clue as to what he had hoped to achieve. Like so many of the Dar at the death of the Empire, Vasan must have been caught in the fanatical belief that the Dar, unique amongst all the creatures of this globe, were destined for something greater than an existence confined to flesh. It had been with an almost religious fervor that the emperor had promulgated this belief: ascendancy, a destiny as gods in the mortal world.

It was a total absurdity, an impossible lie fabricated to excuse the excesses of a degraded and decadent society, lead by the foremost hedonist of them all, the emperor himself. The thought churned through Ardwen's mind, bringing bile to his throat. As a man, the emperor had been fallible, subject to criticism and error, even removal from his throne. By establishing himself as something more, by abusing the sacerdotal and promising to share in its glory with his subjects, he had attempted to set himself beyond any reproach. That he had been a madman was never in doubt to the ancient bladeweaver, but he had been a charismatic madman.

Elerus was but the latest in a somber litany of the dead and betrayed, bodies upon which the Empire and its radical beliefs had been founded. That the Dar Ardwen had just slain was performing experiments here was beyond doubt, and that those experiments were designed to pursue the same insane agenda that the Emperor of the Dar, Selinar, had outlined was also beyond question. His friend had been nothing more than a prime specimen to Vasan.

"Son of a bitch," Ardwen muttered, " always take the best of us, always." The warrior clamped his mouth shut, and steeled his mind. Now was not the time for lament or wailing grief. Elerus was still alive, and that alone was encouragement. The warrior stood, armor rustling and clanking. He quickly decided he would remain in the tower for the night, or until Elerus regained consciousness. With no clue as to the extent of his injuries, moving him was far too risky. The warrior kept the door open, and set out on one more trip through the tower in an attempt to scavenge any supplies he could find. He hoped to find something, even powerful mages had to eat. Before leaving the room, he took one last look at his companion, the fellow soldier who had stood with him and beside him for five thousand years. Rarely had two individuals, especially amongst the Dar, come so close together. There's was a bond forged in war, and while they had not always agreed, it was something stronger than anything the world had yet thrown at them, their friendship had endured even the withering of time.

Still, Ardwen could not shake the feeling that this wasn't over. He let his fingers trace the outline of the small journal he had found earlier, his mind set now on finding supplies and then puzzling out its contents. There was, he desperately hoped, still time.