Novels2Search

Prologue

The sea was not calm. Their wooden vessels creaked and tossed in stormy seas, the thunder gods struck the heavens with their strokes of power. Perhaps they were angry with Rhogok and his people. They now abandoned their ancestral land, Edas, and set out for a new unknown land, inhabited by a people so different from their own. Rhogok's family was with him: his wife, Thaygront; his daughters Thraeg, Thaythulea, Dieluh; his only son, just a toddler, Rhogaro and his eldest daughter, Gweh. This one she wanted to be a warrior, like her father.

They fled their land, which now represented death.

Escaping from Esdas had not been easy. The creatures of death advanced against them, and they tried to flee to their boats in flight. Perhaps Rhogok had been too indolent. Perhaps he had delayed his people's escape from their ancestral land for too long. Perhaps he still had hope that Esdas might have a future. He was wrong. Now they were fugitives from their own land, without a home to return to.

A year before he had probed the new land and had spoken with the king of the Grinlia people, king of all Grinlialand. Despite being a warrior, Rhogok preferred a more friendly approach. Grinlialand's king, Adelazak Sorrel, had welcomed them. He gave up part of his land so that the Edosian people could live. Sazeith, from a rival warrior clan, thought otherwise. He thought that the people of Edas should take the land of Grinlialand by force, as they were much stronger than the people who lived there. Rhogok disagreed, he didn't want to underestimate an unknown people. He also didn't want to deprive a people of their homeland, after all, he knew that feeling. He didn't want to have to take away from a father the chance to give his children a future in the land where he had spent his entire childhood, where his ancestors were buried, where his gods had the most power.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

The thunder gods that Rhogok worshiped still protested their abandonment. Even if he asked for forgiveness, he must agree that Esdas was hopeless. She was lost, forever. She felt for her ancestors who were buried there, but the future was more important than the past. Her children were more important than her ancestors.

His daughter, Gweh, brought him out of his meditations. One of the ships had been swallowed by the waters and now the people on it were sinking in the stormy waters. The sea gods must have been furious too. The ship that had sunk bore a red boar on its shields, which meant that it was Pulbur and his clan who had perished. Rhogok lamented. Pulbur was a good friend.

"It's too late, my lord, too late!" Aestatem, a boy whose family had served Rhogok's clan for a long time, exclaimed to him, touching his shoulder, trying to stop him from jumping into the raging sea to save his friends. "It's impossible, even for you!"

After what seemed like an eternity of storms, Rhogok and his people had finally arrived in Grinlialand.

The settlement of the Edosian settlers was not far from the coastal zone where Rhogok and his people had landed.

In Grinlialand the storm was no more than rain. In the distance he could see the heaviest clouds on a raging sea, the gods of sea and thunder protesting the abandonment of their people to the land of their ancestors. Rhogok hoped to at least find a fireplace and hot food under the thatched roofs of the settlement's huts. What he found was destruction and death. All the settlers were dead, the air smelled of rain and death.

"What the hell happened here?" Sazeid asked. Coming out of the shadows, the warriors of the Grinlia people advanced.

"Sorrel betrayed us, I knew it!" Sazeid had said.

Though tired, hungry, and unprepared, Rhogok and his people would not give up easily. They would fight bravely for their lives.

A bloody battle began...

Previous Chapter
Next Chapter