Tempest of Bravoure: Kingdom Ascent Read online

  Tempest of Bravoure

  Kingdom Ascent

  Valena D’Angelis

  Tempest of Bravoure—Kingdom Ascent by Valena D’Angelis Published by fabled ink.

  www.fabled.ink

  © 2020 Valena D’Angelis

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form on by an electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cover by 100 Covers.

  Maps by Valena D’Angelis.

  First Edition August 23, 2020

  To the little kid who dreamed of something different

  1

  Echoes of Rebellion

  Legends say that passerine birds sing the melodies of prophecy. That where golden eagles go, death follows, and a flock of swans soaring into the sky is a symbol of renewal.

  The Halls of Prophecy reside in a realm between the world of mortals and that of the divine. It is the divide where gods leave fragments of probable futures, and where only the most gifted of creatures may seek insight—humans, elves, any race touched by the holy. Time in the Halls of Prophecy does not flow the same as in the tangible world. What one may perceive as eternity can be contained within the time of a single, deep breath.

  Long before you and I were drawn into existence, there was a divided land, scorched by the memories of war. The grasp of the Dwellunder, the subterranean world of dark elves, had risen to the surface. The victorious dokkalfar prince took a seat on the throne and proclaimed himself King of Bravoure. The people were forced to bow before his dark and sinister power.

  He was Xandor Kun Sharr, and they called Him the Dark Lord. Perhaps this came from the twilight blue shade of his skin. But they sometimes referred to him as Despot, because of the tyrannous nature of his reign. He believed in his own supremacy, his insatiable thirst for control, and tortured any soul he deemed to be beneath him or inadequate. Bravoure had fallen, and the kingdom was further descending into an abyss of terror.

  Yet as Lord Sharr anchored his dominion, a new, serene melody was sung beyond the plains. They heard the whispers, the chants of the gods through the voices of passerine birds. And when the blessed clerics ventured within the prophetic walls, the lyrics of which became clearer:

  “There once was a prince on the golden throne,

  And it is for his sins that the world may atone.

  A dark scourge has risen from the ashes of under,

  His reign to be felt in the roars of thunder.

  But where there is darkness, only light can vanquish,

  And in the radiance, evil will anguish.

  A united storm will be born from bloodshed,

  Wings bright as gold and the false king will be dead.”

  Legends speak of dragons born in the eye of storms, where celestial light shines the brightest. The melodies of prophecy foretell the arrival of a savior, a mortal chosen by the gods, born with dragon essence in their blood.

  When Lord Sharr learned of his predetermined death at the hand of this “savior,” he massacred the remaining drakes and wyverns, the descendants of dragons. Those that still roamed the plains. The sacred creatures became history, frozen in time. Only the imprints of this extinct race’s fossils remain. And to prevent his impending demise, they say Lord Sharr killed Thamias, the last Dragonborn.

  The Dark Lord reigned over Bravoure with terror and fear. Fifty years of oppression, a failed uprising, and the lost hopes of the innocents. But year after year, the fires of rebellion grew stronger, and the echoes of a hushed resistance sang louder and louder across the land.

  Far from the capital and beyond the Gurdal mounts was a small village withdrawn from the rest of the kingdom. It bore the name of its first people, Miggdra, from the old Miggdral settlement. Located at the northern edge of the forest, the village had been built many years ago, at a crossroad of the four most prolific continental trade routes. Many wealthy shipments from the capital to the neighboring states had frequently found their way through the dwelling of Miggdra.

  After the war, the village had become an isolated shire and forgotten by the capital. Safe from the oppression in main Bravoure, Miggdra remained a humble and simple village. It had become a shelter for the few who had made it out of the war in time—for those who sought refuge from the tumults of the past.

  Ahna had been one of these wandering souls. This dark elf had once been welcomed in Bravoure as a Dwellunder refugee a lifetime ago. Now, she was a refugee in this secluded village. After the war, Ahna had come to Miggdra, bearing the shame of a lost battle against her own kin. She had found a calm retreat here, out of the tempest that Bravoure had become, in a little stone house close to the grain fields.

  “You took me in when I was a girl,” the red-haired woman by the window insisted. “You trained me.”

  Kairen Aquil stood leaned against the stone wall. She wore her usual travel attire, a tan leather cuirass over a cotton tunic, with breeches and boots of the same color. A dark brown outfit under a long crimson shawl that drooped from her shoulders.

  She stood with her head held high, looking at the woman she was proud to call sister. The woman who had taken her in and raised her, almost like family. That woman was Ahna. She was much, much older than Kairen, yet she did not look to be.

  Ahna was the elf who owned this little stone house and sat silently at the table. Next to her was an empty set of chairs. She seemed engrossed in thought, her eyes cloudy with distraction. Her pointy ears heard Kairen without truly listening. Ahna stared at a fixed point on the wall—something preoccupied her mind. She was still, but her gaze betrayed the emotions she attempted to hide.

  “You’re the one who told me to join the Resistance!” With that glorious phrase, Kairen brandished her steel sword. “You taught me to fight for my freedom.”

  The red-haired woman held her sword firmly, her keen sense of duty radiating from her athletic stance. Her curls danced on her shoulders like hopping red robins as she gestured around. Her face was dusted with faded freckles that she wore with pride. Ahna forced a slight smile, but a faint shadow could be seen in her purple eyes. Kairen interpreted Ahna’s smile as embarrassment or shame for never having joined the cause herself.

  “It’s better if I stay away,” Ahna finally retorted, her tone darker than before.

  Kairen sheathed her sword and came closer to her sister and friend. She inhaled deeply and searched Ahna’s eyes. “We need soldiers, as many as we can get,” she said calmly but with determination. “It’s time to put this madness to an end. We’ll need someone like you!”

  Kairen had been striving to convince Ahna to join the Resistance for years now. A battle was coming. A clash of generations would soon ensue.

  “Kairen, look at me. I’m dokkalfar. Do you really think the other rebels will even allow me, my kin, near your base?”

  “Some of us may not think so,” she pursued her quest to convince Ahna. “But we need you. And we need someone with”—and there she said it—“magic.”

  Ahna scoffed at the mention of magic. She stood from her chair and marched toward the bedroom. Rattling echoed as if the elf was searching for something. When she returned, she held a small token in her hand. A tiny rounded black marble with an encrusted glyph. It looked like a rune from one of the old texts of the Ancients.

  “Do you k
now what this is?” Ahna asked Kairen, insistently.

  “That’s the mark of Sharr. His warlocks bear it.” There was no hesitation behind Kairen’s words.

  Ahna shook her head. “That’s the symbol of the Magi Academy of Bravoure, the pride of the capital. Wise magi, who were slaughtered, exiled, or turned into warlocks by the One you’re fighting against. If you see this and think of Sharr, it means I will never have a place at the Resistance.” Ahna spoke with genuine passion. The semblance of an old sense of grief seemed to be sewn into her scars. She, herself, had been a part of the lost Academy, destroyed by the Despot, with all its disciples either butchered or enslaved. Lord Sharr had forced the magi into submission, and those who had made it out alive had simply stopped fighting.

  Kairen, aware of some of the hard choices Ahna had made, gently cupped Ahna’s hands with her own, as a gesture of compassion. She wished to show her friend that she understood, or at least as best as she could.

  “Ahna...” she did not immediately find the appropriate words, so she let the silence flow naturally into the room. After a long pause, her tongue suddenly clicked. “Well, then you can tell them what this symbol means,” she began again. “Make them remember what the Academy was and what it stood for. You taught it to me, you can teach it to them!”

  Kairen’s rallying voice sparked a flicker of hope in Ahna’s resolute soul. Still, reality weighed heavier than faith, and Ahna’s shoulders fell. At that moment, Kairen’s patience had faded. Ahna could not remain here, hidden, forever. The time to fight was now. Past was passed, the future had yet to be written.

  “How can you still let this happen after all you’ve lost?” the red-haired woman challenged Ahna, as she made urging movements into the air with her hands. “Every year I come here, you tell me how much you wish you could do something. Well, the time to fight is now!”

  The elf wanted to retort, but sighed deeply instead and turned away. Kairen took one last chance.

  “People are dying, everyday, for Sharr’s own sick game. But everyday, the Resistance grows stronger. Ahna, you have to come back and fight. Even if there is the slightest hope we can win.”

  “You want to plan the next uprising based on nothing but the slightest hope?”

  Kairen stepped closer to Ahna and lay her hand on her shoulder. Their eyes met, and she smiled with resolve. “Hope is the spark that ignites a rebellion, Ahna.”

  A long-awaited change of heart. Kairen’s last words of a few days ago enkindled a lost flame in Ahna’s spirit. The memories of war rushed through her mind. The cleansing order, the King’s death, the failure of the Opposition, the loss, the false prophecy...Sharr’s horde had taken everything from her. But the Resistance had built a new army. She could not stay in Miggdra forever, perhaps the cause was worth fighting for again. In fifty years, she could have moved on from the war, but something in her always wanted to return. Kairen had spoken again and again of the Resistance’s potential to change the world they knew. This had revived a sense of hope in Ahna’s heart. Her shoulders had grown tired of the guilt and shame. Today was the day to step out of the cycle of grief and do something.

  Before she left Miggdra, Ahna had to devise her own safety guard. From her last memory of the war, the Dark Lord had forbidden any form of magic, unless under his authority. Sharr had his warlocks craft magefinders, arcane-powered machines that glowed whenever magic was present in a certain radius. He had used it to hunt down the magi. Therefore, Ahna decided to force a cloak on her magical energy. An old dampening ritual she knew was to wrap her wrists in incensed linen bands, imbued by the scent of crown bellflowers, the indigo bell-shaped flowerets that adorned Gurdal with beautiful fields of blue after winter.

  Gurdal was perhaps the largest mountain range of Terra. A row of high summits filled the northern part of the land. The highest peak could touch the Heavens—the Domain of Stars, they said. The folds of the valleys ended to the north in a vast forest of firs and cedars. Further to the south, and closer to the capital, the ridges elongated into hills full of life with green grass and large fields of pink daisies, yellow orchids, and crown bellflowers.

  Ahna reached southern Gurdal before the sun’s zenith. She had been on her way to a hidden Resistance barracks Kairen had mentioned a few times in the past. She rode her brown steed, Bark, named after his cedar color. She had never really ventured far with him, he mostly helped her with tending to the fields. But he had turned out to be quite the excellent travel companion. A satchel of simple clothing, bread, and a leather bottle hung on Bark’s saddle.

  Ahna’s two iron daggers were sheathed in a double scabbard strapped to her belt. Kairen’s old cloak was draped over Ahna’s shoulders, as green as the coniferous shades girdling Gurdal. A gift from the red-haired stubborn fighter, the first time she had attempted to convince Ahna to join the Resistance. The elf’s skin, blue like the dawn over Bravoure, was covered by a set of traveler’s garments she had put on before leaving. A grey woven vest hugged her tightly over her linen blouse. Her curled silver hair was tied in a knot above her neck, and the bob tapped her neck with every gallop.

  Her brown leather boots were tucked nicely into Bark’s stirrups as they rode in unison. Ahna and her horse loped passively toward her end-goal, an abandoned gold quarry that had once been the epicenter of Bravoure’s wealth. Nowadays, the land was known as a nation of arms dealing and slave trades. The false king could not care less about mining gold. He had hoarded enough treasure and money from the Bravan people after the war.

  Ahna passed a large clearing of trees, and she knew she was getting closer. As the trots pursued their pace, the crack of a branch made her take pause. She pulled the reins back, and Bark halted. The elf focused in her hearing—alert, analyzing the sounds around her. Her pointy ears vibrated furtively.

  Crack.

  Ahna should have been able to distinguish what had made the noise. Dark elves were gifted with incredible hearing. But not this time. She signaled Bark to promenade forward, then to pursue his regular trot. However, she still felt as though something was following her. Even though she had a heat on her back, she did not turn around. As Bark picked up his pace, the sudden wind of an arrow whistled past Ahna’s face. Everything happened so quickly. Bark nervously hoofed the ground. His head bobbed up and down, and Ahna ran her hands down either side of his neck to calm him down. Not even a second had passed, but by the time her steed regained his senses, a tall man had slipped through the branches and stood behind Bark.

  Now, panic was thick in the air. Bark neighed loudly. Ahna swiftly clacked the reins and sent her steed straight off-path. Through the thick foliage, they galloped away from the next gust of arrows. The man stayed behind, and he shouted words in some kind of elven language. Two other figures seemed to chase her from above. They jumped from tree to tree, as though the forest was their playing field.

  Ahna looked back. As she turned around, her eyes met those of a tall and different man. A marksman, whose face was painted with a straight black strip around the eyes, like a thin mask of war-kohl. In his ferocious glare, she saw the light of death—that dark flame one sees in the eyes of assassins. Bark had enough, and he stood on two hooves and reared Ahna off her saddle.

  The strike of a sword clashed with her crossed twin daggers. It came out of nowhere, and Ahna was pinned to the ground. She rolled to one side and resumed her escape, this time on foot. The man from the start of the hunt rushed behind her, footfalls approaching fast. She reached another clearing, where the two shadowy woodsmen from above encircled her from left and right. She could now clearly examine them, they were of the infamous vidthralfar kin, the wood elves, and they wore the leathers of rangers. They came to a standstill behind her.

  She was surrounded and had nowhere to go.

  Ahna turned. The sun shone brightly on the spring field, and she noticed the marksman in the distance again. Bark, on the other hand, was nowhere to be seen. Only remnants of his footprints were left behind. Before the left wood
elf could strike her, she launched her dagger straight at the leg of the ranger behind. This move caused surprise, and she was able to speed toward the tall trees again. She welcomed the thought of a successful escape, but the unexpected stab of an arrow shocked her back to reality.

  The piercing iron point lodged itself in the flesh between her shoulder blades, but the pain that came next was beyond anything coherent. A cold howl of torment shrieked through her veins. The sting of a single arrow felt like the blast of a thousand sharp needles. She collapsed and began to convulse. Shrills ran through her blood. Her life flashed before her eyes.

  The loss.

  The war that had set Bravoure ablaze.

  She was wholly submerged in the agonizing dirge of pain. Holding on to her last grip on consciousness, she whispered the words of a minor sleeping cantrip. As her eyelids fell, the blur of the marksman marched toward her. At the cantrip’s final syllable, she plunged into a deep sleep, where she felt no more pain.

  Whispers in the echoing halls reached Ahna’s pointy ears, and she slowly opened her eyes. She lay on a wooden bench, bare skin, her body covered by brown cotton sheets, stripped from her cloak, weapons and clothing.

  Her enchanted linen bands were missing.

  “I say we get rid of her,” she heard a distant male voice utter.

  The room she was in was cold. It had no windows and was dimly lit by a single torch on the wall. The wooden, reinforced door appeared to be locked shut. Ahna wanted to sit up, but the slight stinging sensation between her shoulders hindered her. She gasped. The voices beyond the dark grey walls slowly came closer.

  “She’s awake.”

  Ahna heard a soft sliding movement from behind her. She realized the door had been barred from outside. A large human entered the room, followed by someone who wore some kind of formal attire. The large man seemed to be waiting for his next orders. Ahna clenched the cotton sheets against her chest.