These are the character intro chapters to an epic high fantasy story idea. I've had this in my head for a long time and have tried to start writing it before but I could never get what was in my head down on paper. I recently tried again and this is the result.
Synopsis:Set in a rich and detailed world of magic, mythical creatures and skilled fighters, eight warriors of various backgrounds find that their fates are entwined after an event that heralds an ancient and almost forgotten prophecy, considered by most to be a myth, throws the future prosperity of the allied provinces of the vast empire know as The Circle into doubt.
In an epic journey of friendship, intrigue, discovery and danger, our protagonists must work together using their various skills, both mystical and otherwise, to fulfill their destinies and save their home from both known and unknown threats to its continued survival.
Alexandria
Two hundred men were anxiously waiting outside the front entrance to the crystal palace. As the huge opaque glass doors began to slowly swing open, the men were met by the welcome sight of two beautiful armoured women with swords at their waists and spears and shields on their backs.
"Follow us please."
The air felt cold yet refreshing, as if the palace's crystal architecture were somehow cleansing its surroundings. They were led down a hallway with statues of warrior women on either side. Although the statues were immaculately carved from marble, the men noticed that the weapons and armour were real, the same as that worn by their two buxom escorts. At the end of the hallway was an entrance to a large open room. On a raised level at the far side of the hall stood Armeena, the valkyrie queen. Six other valkyries stood slightly behind her, three on each side.
The valkyries' primary responsibility is to protect the Circle from the demonic threat of the Badlands, an area in which the mystical energies that emanate from it provide a kind of dimensional doorway, a weakness in the walls between realms and so is nearly always the place where demons emerge from. Many millions of attempts to cleanse the area over the millennia have all failed but the practice continues to this day for several reasons, not least of which is the thought that without the cleansing rituals, the situation would be far worse. It also serves to test the proficiencies of the priests attempting the cleansing. But for as long as the Badlands have been a demonic threat, there has been the valkyries, whose lineage extends back into many past ages and provides them with heightened strength and a natural resistance to the demonic energies of the area and of the demons themselves.
"Welcome to our palace." The queen had a soft but commanding voice. "Please line up into ten lines of twenty".
The valkyries walked between the men for a few minutes before meeting back on the slightly raised level and quietly discussing what they had seen. The men were all anxiously waiting for the verdict and before too long the queen spoke again,
"If you are touched on the shoulder then you have been chosen, good luck."
One of the men turned to the man on his left.
"Did you shave your chest?"
"Er, no" he said with a smile.
This is how the valkyries choose their mates for procreation. Thousands of men apply to be chosen for this honour and are brought forward in groups of a few hundred at a time to determine who will face the challenges of the trials in order to be seen as worthy to add their essence to the valkyries'. It's not that these men are especially lonely or frustrated, the Circle is not a judgemental place and there's plenty of love to be had. It's not that there's any shortage of beautiful women either, but the valkyries are especially attractive, regarded by most as angelic goddesses. This preliminary selection process is based only on appearance. This is to ensure that the valkyries are as physically attractive as possible, not for any notion of vanity but simply to encourage as many applicants as possible for just this type of occasion.
The woman spoke again,
"Those who have not been chosen, please leave the same way you came in and better luck next time, those who have been chosen, come with us!".
Alexandria had no real interest in the selection process itself, that wasn't why she always put herself forward to be one of the selectors. It was because she loved to fight and fighting for sport was prohibited among the valkyries. They fought each other in training almost every day but this allowed her to fight people that she didn't know and who use completely different styles. The men she chose were based on who she sensed were the best and most interesting fighters rather than who she found attractive.
The men were lead out into a large open, square courtyard with pillars holding up a stone roofed area around the perimeter.
"Now we see if you can fight!"
One of the men was ushered forward and given the same type of shield, wooden sword and blunted spear that the valkyries who were to fight them were equipped with. Alexandria stepped forward before anyone else could and cracked her shoulders before drawing her spear from her back with a broad smile. She'd been waiting for this for the past two years.
Eshra
Eshra's defeated opponent slowly got off the ground and on to his knees. Without getting up he nodded to Eshra and turned his back. Eshra then quickly thrust his rapier downwards with the point of entry at the base of the man's neck. He died instantly.
Pit fits are very different to the coliseum fights that take place directly above. Although deaths can, and frequently do accrue in the coliseum, the aim of those contests is simply to win. Below the coliseum is the biggest caged ring in the Circle, an arena with a different objective, survival. Two fighters go in, one comes out alive. A large metal grate baring the insignia of the circle marks the centre point of the coliseum arena and and the ceiling of the cage below, allowing the cage at times such as now, to be impressively illuminated with natural light when one of the suns is directly above.
Eshra walked over to his friend and unofficial coach but didn't sit down.
"I want to go again Coach, soon as possible."
If this was anyone else, Coach might have been surprised.
"You've made it known that you're willing to fight any opponent and now you want to fight two in a row. Do you have a death wish?"
Eshra had fought and won twenty-four fights before tonight and had thrown down the gauntlet to anyone who wished to challenge him after beating an opponent with an even more impressive record in his last fight.
Eshra smiled.
"Quite the opposite my friend. The pit isn't about death, it's about life. I never feel more alive than when I'm fighting to the death. I have a life wish."
Coach sighed.
"Fair enough. I'll see what I can arrange"
Eshra watched the next fight as Coach went to talk to another trainer. It didn't last long. One fighter had never been in the cage before and the other had fought twice. Sometimes people love the idea of competing at that level of intensity but tense up when it becomes a reality. The losing fighter hadn't exactly tensed up but he was trying not to lose rather than fighting to win, and it got him killed.
Eshra thought back to his first time in the ring three years ago. He was up against an opponent who had already won six times, convincingly. Everybody was expecting a cautious new fighter vs a confident opponent who would go on the offencive. Instead Eshra casually walked up to him with his sword still sheathed. He then draw his sword in the same motion as he blocked the swing of his opponent before breaking his knee cap with a low side kick and thrusting his sword underneath the chin and through the top of his opponent's head. The whole crowd had fallen silent, for about five or six seconds when they fully processed what they had just witnessed and rose to their feet, chanting his name. 'That was nothing' he had thought, 'wait till you see me when I actually need to try'.
After Eshra's second fight, against a much stronger opponent than the first, he never looked back. He had a huge reputation instantly and all his fights since had only enhanced it further. He was now known as Eshra The Invincible. Although this discouraged many fighters from wanting to face him in the cage, it also attracted the most skilled opponents looking to make an instant name for themselves by defeating him. This suited Eshra just fine.
Coach nodded to the dwarf woman he was talking to and made his way back to Eshra.
"Well, I've found an opponent who's willing to fight you. He's name is Erg, Erg The Ogre!"
"He feels the need to include the information that's he's an ogre in his cage name?"
"Apparently."
Erg The Ogre approached Eshra.
"You Eshra?"
"Me Eshra. You troll?"
"I'm Erg The Ogre!"
"Oh. Smell like troll." Coach was desperately trying not to laugh.
After a few seconds Erg The Ogre realised that he was being made fun of.
"You'll regret that!"
"How? If I lose I won't have time to regret it." Erg looked confused for a moment before wandering towards the cage while mumbling something under his breath.
"Having fun?" Coach asked.
Eshra just smiled. He cracked his neck and made his way to the cage.
Sara
The small forest elf patrol spread out from their tight formation and took up positions that would shield them from the view of whoever was heading in their direction. They were silently drawing their bows ready to unleash a hail of arrows when Sara came into view.
"I know you're there" she said in a raised voice. "Whats going on?"
The other elves left the cover, looking slightly agitated.
"Keep your voice down! There's well over two dozen goblins heading this way. We're heading back for reinforcements."
Sara didn't seem too concerned, she just paused for a moment.
"By the time we do that they might have left the forest. There's nine of us, we should take them out now."
They thought about it for a few moments before cautiously agreeing. They felt much stronger as group now that Sara was with them.
Shadowood Forest is a huge area of woodlands that borders the edge of the Circle on one side. Many thousands of elves live in semi-isolated settlements scattered throughout the woods, children of the forest they're often called. Sara never spent long in one settlement, preferring to spread her time throughout the entire forest. Any hostile intruders trying to use the Shadowood as way into the Circle have to not only navigate their way through the dense thicket while avoiding giant spiders and many other wild creatures, but also evade the elven settlements and their patrols.
"Three groups of three then?" Asked Sara.
The others agreed, with two of the scouts taking up positions directly beside her and the two other groups forming either side of them.
The forest elves have no strict hierarchy but age tends to be an unofficial status of rank with the elders usually making the decisions that affect the the community as a whole. Sara isn't quite the oldest in this group but she holds far more respect than her age would normally grant a forest child.
As they neared the enemy, they took cover and waited until the goblins were in sight of all nine of them and then let loose their arrows. Sara immediately followed up with an energy spell that struck and floored three that were in a row as she dashed in and struck down the closest goblin.
Sara isn't a powerful magician but there had been an increasing number of goblin intruders over they past week or so she had been storing her energy for just this kind of situation. She liked using magic but equally enjoyed swordplay and archery.
Despite killing one goblin with her bow before stunning three others with the spell and then dispatching a fifth with her sword all withing a few seconds, most of them had now already been dispatched with arrows. The three that had been briefly stunned plus a few others tried to run away but all except for one that was now out of sight were taken down by the elves' arrows. Sara, being the closest, ran after the last goblin. She rounded the corner, took careful aim and launched an arrow straight into the back of the goblin's neck.
"Take a look at this!" Sara heard from behind her. She moved back towards the others to see what they had found.
"There." One of the elves was using his sword to point to war paint on one of the fallen goblin's arm. It was a symbol of the spider tribe. Only fairly high ranking members of the tribe wore this pattern so it wasn't known until now which tribe the recent goblin intruders belonged to.
"Wonderful." Sara said, meaning the exact opposite.
The spider tribe is one one the largest known goblin tribes and definitely the most aggressive.
"We should get ba...""Shh!" Sara interrupted, holding up her hand to signal the others to keep quiet. "Do you hear that?" she whispered.
The others listened intently and then a look of recognition came over one of the other elves' faces, then another. They nodded.
"Trees!" Sara whispered as she made her way up to near the top of the nearest tree.
They could all hear what she heard now, voices. The nine elves made their way gracefully and almost silently through the tree tops until they caught sight of the source of the voices. There were too many goblins to count. They quickly changed direction and took to the ground again as soon as it was safe so they could sprint to the nearest settlement and raise the proverbial alarm.
Rain
After stirring, on the verge of waking up, Rain felt Tarja's arm wrap around him as a warm gentle breeze from the open window greeted his return to the waking world. Elves don't need a great deal of sleep but he hadn't rested for a while so had decided to sprawl out for an hour or so.
"Hello beautiful." he said smiling.
Seeing that he was awake, the palace panther jumped down off the bed and sat on the floor. Rain briefly rubbed the side of her neck as he walked over to the washbasin to freshen up and playfully flicked water at her. She sneezed and padded over to the window, starring affectionately at what she saw below.
The palace is situated right at the heart of the Centre Circle, which itself is situated at the heart of the Inner Circle, at the heart of the Circle itself. As big as a large town, it wasn't exactly clear where the palace ended and the outside started. It was built, like much of the architecture in the Circle, as a continuum rather than as a definite and well defined structure.
Rain went over to the window to check the time by looking at the sky, the fresh aroma of the bakery reached his nose, 'hmm, I love that smell'. He saw Tarissa in the courtyard just below practising for the archery tournament being held later in the day so he left his room and made his way down to see the other important lady in his life.
"Afternoon sis." he said to his twin.
"Good sleep?"
"Yea until Tarja woke me. I needed to get up anyway, they'll be here soon."
"Ah the burdens of being emperor."
Tarissa had set up a a target in the courtyard a while back so that she didn't didn't have to go to the range to practice. She preferred practising alone most of the time and she had always loved this courtyard.
"How's practice going?" Rain asked.
"Good. I might actually beat her this time, I'm tired of always coming in second."
"Well, stranger things have happened I suppose." he said with a feigned look of disbelief on his face.
"Thanks for the support." she replied, half agitated, half amused.
"Why would you want to be the best? If there were no such thing as forest elves you'd be no better with a bow than you are now, worse in fact because you wouldn't have had as much motivation to up your game."
Rain cocked his head slightly while looking at her bow.
"I think you bent it, you've overused it. You need a new one." he said as he took the bow from her.
"No they're supposed to have that curve in them. That's how they're designed."
She took the bow back, looked at the target and then looked back at Rain while drawing an arrow, pulling the bow back and launching the arrow straight into the centre of the target.
Rain fought hard not to show how impressed he was to keep the banter going.
"Alissia would have done it without having to recheck the target before looking away."
Tarissa just looked at him, part amused, but mostly agitated.
Rain dropped the pretence.
"That was awesome! Pity there's no looking away while shooting category in the tournament."
"You could make it a category."
"Should I make it a rule that those whose name starts with a T get a hundred points to begin with?"
Tarissa looked thoughtful, as if actually contemplating the idea.
"The knights are here" a loud voice said from a balcony above them.
Rain nodded up at the balcony.
"They're early. You coming?"
"Nah, I'm going to practice some more. I'm in the zone."
"Okay, I'll let you know if there was any exciting news."
Rain made his way to the meeting hall and sat in his usual chair.
"What's going on my peeps?" he said to the elven knights.
"Nothing to really report." said Kriss, commander of the knights.
"You came all the way here to tell me that? I know it was a scheduled meeting but you could have just told me that through a crystal."
"That's not why we're here." Cassandra said with a grin. "We brought someone with us who you've been wanting to meet and we had to see it."
Rain knew straight away who she was referring to.
"Let's go." he said with great anticipation.
They went straight to the arena, where a crowd, including Tarissa, was gathered. Markus was standing in the centre of the ring. He bowed his head slightly.
"Emperor." he said with respect.
Rain was a legendary fencer and Markus was an up and coming fencer who had won all his his fights so far against the some of the very best of opponents. Rain had heard of Markus' exploits about three months ago and was keeping track of his results. A month ago Rain had officially challenged him to a friendly match.
"Markus." Rain said with equal respect as he moved into position and raised his foil to signal that he was ready. Markus did the same.
