REFUGE IN DHAREN’RHYLO
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A New Home
The missionaries made promises, but not all of them fulfilled. Now that the Tribelands were purged of the Wolf Tribes, the north was ripe for Dharen’Rhylo to occupy. Ships came and went much more frequently as more and more religious settlers came to fell the wood to lay the foundations for their future settlement. Upon one of those vessels the missionaries promised the last northern tribe safe passage. And while they were given passage, safe wasn’t the ideal word for it. Not even given proper quarters, the seven were shuffled down to cargo hold where they remained in the darkness for the entirety of the voyage.
When they arrived on Dharen’Rhylo soil, they did so in a port just northeast of Gabriel’s Hold. But they were not given the greatest of welcomes. The church immediately reprimanded the missionaries for their selfishness. At the time, there was believed to be no place within Dharen’Rhylo that could harbor them But there was indeed one Bishop who offered his land to them. For the refugees of Tribelands, it appeared that not everyone within Dharen’Rhylo was corrupt.
The Bishop asked for nothing in return and allowed the seven to live upon his land as they wished. Yet the Bishop had other intentions for the Tribe. He only gave them one stipulation. They were not allowed to leave the land without his permission. He stated that he had to consult with the church directly about any matters relating to the Tribe’s liberty to travel.
Without anywhere else to turn, they agreed to this condition and were escorted into the north of Dharen’Rhylo. There they would come into contact with the cold and wintery conditions that were familiar to them. Of course they were not as harsh as the Tribelands, but it was enough like home to suffice. The land they were given spanned a few miles in all directions. It was more than enough for six and a young babe to occupy.
Meanwhile, Dharen’Rhylo celebrated their victory and announced to their people that they successfully made peace in the Tribelands. They painted the whole affair as though they had brought religion to a faithless people and seamlessly converted them into their fold. The survivors, the last seven, were not supposed to hinder this news at all. They were never even aware Dharen’Rhylo made such claims. Furthermore, with no tribes to offer protection to the sacred wolves of the north — the settlers that came to the Tribelands made sport of them. Soon the large wolves were nearly completely killed off; forcing even the majestic beasts to flee from the wintery north in the far reaches of the unknown. Only a few lingered but cleverly avoided detection.
In the eyes of his father, Silvanus was their last great hope. He was blessed by Ombra — the black furred spirit god of the moon and giver of death. The sign was given on the day he was born, the day of the first full moon; the day in which Ombra first wanders. It is believed that those born on that day have the blessing of Ombra. This was born upon his forehead with a marking given to him by his father: a single line of blood, drawn upon his brow with a thumb. Silvanus wore this mark on his head for much of his childhood, knowing it only as the mark of the next leader of their tribe.
Silvanus was to be his father’s successor, but whether he realized it or not — all that changed the day that Silvanus was given a brother.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Connor was born some eighteen months later and would prove to be a lingering threat in Silvanus’ mind. Many things occurred on that day. For starters, the second born of the Al’Mora of the last northern tribe was given a name foreign to that of their kin. Conner was not born within the sacred forests of their homeland, nor was he born under the light of a full moon. Instead he was born under the darkness of a new moon — a time that is believed when Ombra stands most vigilant at his post before the Moon Gate.
Which means that Ombra’s eyes were too busy to linger on the newborn; instead, Connor was born under the spiritual gaze of Nixia — Ombra’s daughter. Born weak and sickly, the young Connor was believed to have been too feeble to live on. But he overcame his sickness; Nixia showed him mercy and did not wish for him to join her that day. To his father and mother, Connor was a child that not even death wished to take. Perhaps in many societies that’d be seen as a good thing. But considering the humiliation of living in a land that is not their own, perhaps death would have been much more favorable for the child.
While ritual would suggest that Silvanus would not be hindered in his rise to become Al’Mora of his tribe. Silvanus would see it differently when Connor began to show a greater devotion than he to his father and mother.
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What was Lost
As Silvanus and Conner grew older, their father grew more and more distant from the use of Crude Bolters. His own bolter has been stripped of him years ago as a condition for his living on the land offered up by the Bishop. There was no war to fight and no means for him to gain ammunition for it, so he did little to fight for it. He began to see them for what they were — a coward’s tool. His few remaining warriors saw this as well as they returned to their old ways of hunting. For so many years they had depended upon the weapon that they nearly forgot how to hunt proper in the wild.
The Al’Mora wanted to ensure that his young pups knew what it was to truly hunt with their bodies rather than crude things of metal and wood. But some techniques were forgotten. The elders who had perfected the way of the hunt had been ripped away by war. Only in the absence of fighting did the Al’Mora finally see what they had lost. So he did his best to try and salvage what he could; gathering the memories of the survivors to try and piece together some last remnant of their dying culture. He wanted Silvanus to know all of it, and so he pressured the boy to be perfect at everything — he wanted his son to be better, stronger, and faster than anyone else.
But the Al’Mora had always been heavy handed in his approach. Silvanus did not take kindly to his influence. It was this desire to preserve the Wolf Tribe culture that began to make Silvanus disinterested. The approach his father took made the boy more and more distant. All the while he did as his father instructed, but he quietly began to loathe every bit of it. But what started to truly bother him most was that Conner, his own brother, betrayed him by appearing more fascinated than he in wolf culture. But Connor was not the one bearing the brunt of their father’s pressures. At the same time Silvanus grew envious of Connor and therefore began to hate him. He began to hate that Connor didn’t see his brother’s plight; he hated that Conner was such a blind fool and that he didn’t understand or empathize with him. Instead he did as father told.
In the eyes of Silvanus, Connor was always trying to undermine him. Either he was just too stupid to see what his father was doing, or he was too clever — quietly trying to appear better than Silvanus. Always self-conscious and overly judgmental of himself, Silvanus feared that he would never be the man his father wanted him to be. He feared that Conner was trying to take that role from him and prove he wasn’t strong enough, that he wasn’t good enough, and that he wasn’t wolf enough.