Untitled Fantasy Story - Chapter 1

By popular request I am adding this note on pronunciation of the names herein.
Earymir Tadrierion: Eer-i-meer Tah-dreer-ee-awn
Koilin Riappi: Kuah-lin Ree-ah-pee
Jibrylla Clirka: Jib-ril-la Cleer-ka
Lomode Nilmandra: Lohm-ohd Nil-mahn-dra
Eowóndil Til-Galdur: E-own-dill Till-gall-door

Hopefully this will aid my readers with the names.

It was late into the evening, with only the dim and distant stars to lift the oppressive darkness. Earymir Tadrierion looked out the tower window onto the surrounding stone walls built high and strong by those who had held his position long ago. He was a tall man, with aquiline features, penetrating silvery gray eyes and hair which looked to be made of nothing if not quicksilver. He wore a dark cloak over fine chain armour, and bore an unadorned long sword at his hip. He now stood in a bastion tower on the borders of his land, built to watch for attack from the sea, which it overlooked. It had been built in a time when people feared attack, though those whom could remember those days were few and far between. Yet war was again drawing near, and Earymir was not here to watch the sea as he had done so many times before, but to meet with his fellow rulers of the lands that he was sworn to protect. Sighing, he turned from the window to look upon those whom gathered here with him.


Before him lay a small room of stone, lit by a single bare torch beside the door, and furnished only with stark stone chairs and a heavy wooden table. Three others were gathered with him this night; the High King and Queen of the Dwarven people: Koilin Riappi and Lomode Nilmandra, along with Earymir’s own wife Jibrylla Clirka.


“They’re coming,” he said to his friends. “They’re coming, they will not be stopped and we are the last.”


“Bah, we’ll turn them back as we did before,” grumbled Koilin, sitting against the wall farthest from the solitary window as he could manage due to a fear of such heights, though he would claim it simply that it was unnatural to be so far above the earth. Koilin was short for even his kind, with hair so dark as to be nearly black as jet even in the sunlight, and a beard cut clean to frame his face neatly and squarely. The Dwarven High King reveled in his position and strove to outshine the sun itself for splendor. He wore this day more jewels and metals than cloth it would seem, and his sword looked to be more gemstone than metal, and while he knew the quality of the blade, as well as it’s owner’s skill, Earymir nonetheless thought he looked the proper fool for it all.


“Will we?” asked Earymir softly ”I foretold this day long ago, and you all thought me mad for it. Do you not recall that I also saw in it our downfall?”


“Even the wisest among us cannot see all ends, my dear,” spoke Jibrylla, leaning back against the wall to his right, her musical voice a discordant keening to Earymir’s mind. Bearing vibrant red hair, eyes of the deepest green, and wearing a fine red dress more suited to the ballroom than a meeting of state, the Elven High Queen preferred to flaunt her office and wealth rather than dress down to hide in the shadows. “Perhaps you misread your vision, and it is possible to change the course of the events you saw.”


“And perhaps you underestimate the amount of time and study I had given to these matters before sharing the vision with you?” Earymir said softly, very nearly growling his words in an attempt to control his anger. “Name me a time when I have misread a vision, any vision, let alone one of my own.”


Jibrylla was as fair as any of her people, and many thought more so. The two had wed many long years ago, a marriage of convenience and political alliances, arranged to bring the whole of the Elven Nations under the rule of one throne. Though she had, in short time, come to love him dearly, he could not return that love, and in truth had no desire to. He found her very presence as much a nuisance as a swarm of locusts, and oft thought the locusts preferable.


“Perhaps we should return to the subject at hand, friends, rather than stew in our anger and argue personal affairs. This is neither the time nor the place for such things,” said Lomode, standing at the table in the middle of the room, her eyes, as always, watching Earymir like a hawk watches a mouse, noting every nuance of thought and movement. She was an average height, for her people, with light brown hair and eyes. She wore earth-tone robes and bore no weapon save her staff made of a mighty oak, and bore no jewels or ornamentation to proclaim her station. “Have we not more important things to worry about at the moment than personal quarrels?”


“Ah, an arrow to the heart of matters, my dear,” laughed Koilin, watching the contortions of Jibrylla’s face as she fought back her anger at being made a fool in front of not only her peers, but especially in front of Lomode, with whom she shared a hatred beyond speaking. As with most Elves, she maintained a strong hatred for Dwarves, as a rule, but with Lomode it far surpassed any racial ties.


Earymir only sighed, a sound of deep exhaustion, and returned to the table, taking up the object that they had gathered to discuss. To the eye it appeared to be naught but a simple knife with a serpentine blade, decorated only with a blood ruby centered on the crossguard of the hilt. It had much more grave a meaning to the four rulers.


He looked up from the dagger and his own thoughts to meet the eyes of his companions. His face took on the stony strength that he was known for showing, to all matters when sitting judgment, no matter how close to his heart they may be. When he spoke again, his voice carried all the weight of his office. “Is there one among us who says that Eowóndil Til-Galdur is aught but a traitor to all our people, as well as all those peoples not represented on this council?”


None spoke at that, though the pity reflected in their eyes, while intended to soothe, served only to heat his anger. Their silence was all the answer he needed. With a grim cast to his face, he raised the dagger high overhead and said, in a voice that could be heard throughout the great tower, “So let it be known from this day forth that Eowóndil Til-Galdur is hereby deemed traitor to both the thrones of our people, and to all of our allies. He is to be killed on sight, without question or hesitation. Let it also be known from this day forth that any whom give him aid are also branded as traitor, and shall share his damnation. This is our decree, and it shall be done.”


He looked then upon his comrades, weighing them on his mind’s scales, hoping they would have what was necessary for the road they had set upon, and wishing they took this threat more to heart than a simple matter of state, not to lose sleep over. He struck the dagger into the wooden table to the hilt and swiftly turned to leave the chamber. He paused at the doorway long enough to give a soft word to his associates before departing. “The storm is begun, let us rest now before it breaks.” At this, the room lit with the first flash of lightening from a storm the likes of which had not been seen in many long ages, and which had no foreseeable end.


If you liked this first chapter, please read Chapter 2

Untitled Fantasy Story - Chapter 2  (13+) The second chapter of my story. #1143218 by Elyaswolflord