AAR: The Recently Discovered Journals of the Legendary Desle

[st.patrik]

People fear me. I don’t care why. I just care that my enemies feel pain and know despair before they die.

I serve the great god we call silent, the watching one, the unsleeping god, he who waits. These many years we have fought many peoples. I write this account now, as our despicable enemies surround us on every side, so that our glory will be known. For we the ever-young are strong and fierce, and our exploits put dismay into the hearts of our enemies. And if we should fall in the field of battle against the slave legions or the blood-soaked apes we will take a thousand of their number with us.

But I should begin at the start, before this hideous darkness came over the sky. In my youth I played and ran under the sun in our great city, in Validor, on the western coast of the sea. My mother was only 58 when she bore me, a great sorceress of our people. Finola is her name. My father I never knew. My mother understood the great mysteries of all living things, and also the power of the skies. She taught me the art of disguising my appearance, how to move silently and unnoticed among the lesser peoples, how to live in the deep forest. I grew up as a warrior and as a king. I lived six hundred years under the rolling sun, and fought the other kings who vyed for dominance. Six hundred years and yet sixty before the silent god emerged from the forest, mighty spear in hand, beckoning all should lay aside petty differences and stand against the gathering tides of evil peoples, who unknown to us, drew near our lands with dreams of its despoiling.

I came before the mighty god. The massive shaft of his great spear towered over me as I knelt before him. When my life was spared I knew he had accepted my service. I became a warrior in his service, nay, an executioner of those worthless dogs who oppose us. The unspeaking god gave me a sword of strange fashion to wield in place of my lance. Some strange power of winter was locked inside its blade, for when it is drawn forth it bursts into cold flames of blue which smite many men. Also given me was a hauberk made of gleaming silver, light yet strong. Finally I was given a shield of cunning design, made of living vines, which will attack any men who raises a weapon against me.

Thus prepared I rode out to do battle with the enemies of our people. At first I journeyed across the great plains to the south, destroying such primitive people as stood in the way. At length I came to a range of foothills. When I rode to the top and gazed beyond I saw the abomination the silent god had seen before me: foul spawn of the eastern ocean, crawled upon dry land. Creatures so monstrous that they bore no resemblance to man or beast, and some who by trickery or dark magiks had the appearance of men but were not.

I prayed for the blessing of the silent god, and his power shone upon me. I felt surrounded by a shield of protection, felt new energy run into my limbs, felt my body quicken, and knew his power was behind my every stroke. Quickly I intoned an ancient charm to harden my skin, and drew on the magic of the air rushing past me to make my body like the mist itself, and then I charged down onto the plain. My cry dismayed the weak and twisted creatures, yet with a steady resolve they rose to challenge me. None lived; all died knowing despair at the moment they fell. Those wounded were cut into pieces, my sword freezing the wounds shut even as they were made. In the end they watched, with dying eyes, as the pieces of their own bodies flailed and became still.

After this onslaught the fell creatures, which had overrun the whole southland, were quickly driven into a great inland sea, where we were powerless to defeat them. By night their foul brethren would swim up the river from the eastern seas, so that in the morning their numbers were increased. The silent god made a guard be set around this lake - eight of the most powerful sorceresses in pairs watched each corner of the lake, ready to send great blasts of lightning upon the miserable creatures, should they break their exile.

For a time the land seemed to know peace, though it was a troublesome peace. To the east across the great mountains a sickly and horrible race of beasts grew into a mighty kingdom. They looked like men but stouter, and with hair over their bodies. Tales said they reveled in unclean ceremonies, in which they drank the blood of the living and the dead. To the north where the great forests of our land end, beyond the river that marks our boundary three races arose: a different monstrous race born of the ocean took to land, and though they did not attack us, their fearsome bodies were hard and rough, and their weapons ever ready in their hands. At the same time, out of the deep north the giants were seen: shapechangers of legend. Finally our ancient enemy, the cursed Fomorians came upon our lands. These brutal creatures, not content to suffer wrath from heaven, visit their curse upon the world yet, their great single eyes roving in search of something good to destroy. The ghastly goat-heads of their warriors marking them as deserving of a goat's death.

I was drawn to the north, to face down these monstrosities, and hold our lands against any who would come. Seaghdha, one of the sidhe warriors, had begun a rampart to hold our enemies at bay. We built a temple in honour of the silent god, and waited.

Meanwhile in the south the god-queen of the hideous sea creatures enlisted the aid of sea creatures of fell repute, who can make their form like onto the fairest maiden, and so tempt the weaker men to go to their embrace. Many soldiers went to their deaths in the sudden watery embrace they found. The sea creatures had to be dealt with.

Our leaders found a tribe of the same monstrous sea creatures found in the north, except somehow separated and living in peace on the shores of the western sea, far to the south. These we called shamblers, on account of their slow but steady stride. Figuring them to be natural enemies of our adversaries we hired them in great numbers, led by one of my brethren, Tuathal, who had somehow come across a mystic talisman which allowed him to breathe pure air, even under the dark seas.

Once Tuathal attacked, and upon driving back a small force found a great under-sea fortress, made of the living seaweed, yet inpenetrable. As our forces set in to siege it they were set upon by a vast horde, and had to flee to land. Twice Tuathal attacked, and once again reached the kelp walls, only to be rebuffed. Three times he attacked, finally with an army so mighty that another of my brethren, Tegue, with a magic ring similar to Tuathal’s talisman, came to join in the attack, leading hundreds of tall sea peoples down to fight their ancient enemy.

The walls were reached, and the troops made ready to withstand a third assault. In the darkest hours, when no light penetrates the gloom of the deep waters, the attack came. Countless foul tentacled creatures, hundreds of lightless fell beasts came against them. Yet their positions they held, and when the opposing army saw that their attack would be in vain their spirits broke, and they fled down the river to the deep ocean, to nurse their many wounds, leaving their fortress deserted.