Orphan of Elothin

 

Thran Awlry ran down the tunnel screaming gibberish as he went. The cloaked figure quickly followed hovering above the uneven rocky floor. A young man, Thran was rather quick but the thing following him kept pace. He became more distraught and lost, every corner he turned in the dark caverns. He ran around another corner coming to a dead end. He heard a whooshing sound behind him.

                He whirled about, terror in his dark eyes. The mind-flayer threw back its hood and laughed displaying its long tentacles.  He brandished what was left of his family’s sword. The mind flayer used its psionic abilities, knocking Thran to his knees. His mouth gaped and his eyes rolled back in terror. The mind-flayer walked behind him. Thran felt cold clammy hands set over each of his ears. He felt immense pain all over his scalp as the mind-flayer began to read his memories.

                It was a bright day, but the sunshine did not pierce the canopy of trees surrounding the small hut. A small boy of about ten walked around the hut swinging a stick as though it were a sword. The boy lived in this dump of a home with his Aunt Narinda. She wasn’t really his aunt they didn’t look at all alike. She had told him that his mother had died giving birth to him and his father quickly followed by committing suicide. She was a cruel woman with the looks of an ancient witch. She had him leave the hut at certain times and told him to stay away until she called for him.

                Usually his Aunt’s friend Thrival, a tall man, would come over and train Thran in his swordplay. Thrival was a strange man he always wore a full suit of black armor and never took off a piece of it. Thrival had a weird voice; it had a hiss, gravel sound to it. Thran couldn’t tell if the voice matched the face because he had never seen his face. But this day Thrival didn’t show up.

                Thran walked around becoming bored fighting off the numerous tree and bush foes. He started to become overwhelmed with a curiosity so strongly found in children. Going against what his aunt said and his common sense he walked to the back of the hut. As he neared the small shuttered window he heard mumbling coming from inside it sounded like two people having a conversation. He had only seen his aunt in there when he left and he hadn’t seen anyone enter. The shutters were open just a crack and strong odors of incense and other burning concoctions could be smelt. Cautiously he neared the opening and peeked in.

                At the sight of the scene inside Thran almost screamed. Inside of a circle inscribed in chalk on the floor stood a tall figure. It wore the suit of Thrival, from the boots up to the cuirass, but this thing wore no helmet. The face of this beast was a dark crimson with splotches of black. It had serpentine features and two curved horns growing from its forehead. It glanced around the room giving Thran a perfect view of the beast’s catlike eyes and sharp fangs. Thran stared in disbelief; this could not be his mentor. Then the beast spoke. “Narinda do you not trust me anymore?” the beast sounded exactly like Thrival.

                “You have been harder and harder to control you treacherous demon. I know if I didn’t keep the leash on you, you would quickly kill me. You have trained the boy well enough, he can best most men. Your services are no longer needed.” Narinda said with no hint of humor.

                “You can not dispose of me so easily you dirty witch!” Thrival snarled and charged her drawing a black blade. He got to the edge of the chalk outline and smashed into an invisible barrier, energy crackled all about him sending him reeling back.

                Narinda flinched and yelped as he hit the barrier. Thran let out a small yell as the energy crackled. Narinda stopped suddenly looking at Thran.

                “No, Thran, you little wretch leave right…” her words were cut off. Losing her concentration for a second had given Thrival an opportunity. He charged the barrier again this time breaking it. Narinda screamed in her cackling voice as Thrival drove the blade deep into her chest. Blood spattered around her feet and bubbled out her mouth as she fell.

                “Thran, my lad. I thank you for freeing me from your aunt’s prison. You have come in quite handy.” Thrival looked toward the crumpled form of Narinda. “You will serve me well, Thran. Together we will accomplish great things.”

                Thrival started toward Thran. Narinda sat up slowly and started to chant. Thrival hearing the arcane words pour from her mouth turned and charged her fangs bared. As he rushed across the room he began to decinigrate from the feet up. He was already missing up to his waist before he crossed back over the broken chalk circle. He made it within a few feet of Narinda before he disappeared completely with a blood-curdling roar. Narinda collapsed back and started to wither like a fruit sped up in time.

                Thran let out a yell almost matching that of Thrival. He shook and convulsed trying to get the mind-flayers hands off of him. He began to rise and lift his sword. The mind flayer let loose with another psionic blast. Thran crumpled again to his knees, the sword clanging as it hit the ground. Blood splattered around the sword, the blood had fallen from Thran’s nose. The mind flayer reattached its tentacles and searched deeper.

                It was a dark and rainy evening as a group of more or less uniformed men walked down a deserted road. They each carried weapons of different sorts and all had the same look of grimness to them. One of the grim faces belonged to a young boy of about fourteen. Thran carried a sword with the crest of a phoenix emblazoned on the pommel and a blue-blood stained handkerchief on the hilt of the mud-caked sword. He walked with the same routine mechanical march as the other soldiers.

                They had been fighting the Goblin armies in the border wars for two years. Their little group had started out with seventy-five men and now was down to twenty. The goblins were skilled at setting traps into the stone of the mountain, traps that had taken many men unawares. Thran was a rat; a boy used to crawl into tight places and flush out the enemy. They had had many rats in his troop; one rat was his friend Tiel uth Marlin. Tiel had died two weeks earlier; he had crawled down into a suspected goblin hideout and not come out. They sent Thran down after him.

                Thran had come upon what was left of his young friend, smashed under a large slab of rock that had fallen from the ceiling. He had only recognized the corpse because of the handkerchief that Tiel carried in his boot, Tiel’s mother’s handkerchief, given for good luck. Thran took it and tied it to his sword hilt. He combed the small cavern seeing that the goblins had moved out weeks before.

                Now he was the only rat left in their small group. He was sort of a good luck symbol for them since he had lasted so long. He walked staring at the muddy pot-holed road; he didn’t care for the look of the surrounding mountains much anymore. He heard the order to make camp, it was almost dark and they had found a small cave with an entrance in the front and an exit out the back.

                They quickly set up camp and started a few small fires to dry off by. The small cave rapidly began to have an overpowering stench from the soldiers who hadn't bathed in weeks and the food they were forced to eat. Thran decided to go outside, he was feeling crowded. He crawled up on top of the cave by the entrance and drew his sword. He pulled a rag out of his pocket, dipped it in a small pool of water that had collected on the rock and began to wipe the mud and blood off. He was glad to have this sword; it was perfectly fitted to him and was well balanced. Most importantly it was the only thing he had of from his family.

                After the demon Thrival had killed Narinda, Thran had run to the only other place he knew in the woods, the burned-out husk of his parents’ home. He stayed there for almost a year partially rebuilding the hut so he could survive. While cleaning out the buried cellar he had found this sword, it had Awlry written in common and a few other words written in some arcane language on the blade. He saw the symbol of the phoenix and thought if fitting for him, he would be rise from the ashes of his lost childhood, much like the phoenix. Ever since then he had taken care of the blade like it were a living thing. After knocking off all the mud he began the almost religious task of polishing it.

                The rain began to fall down by the gallons. Thran decided to head back into the stuffy cave with his companions. Almost everyone was fast asleep, except the night watch, worn out from the long day of marching. They had to march for two more days to get to the front line.  Thran threw out his soggy bedroll by one of the small fires and fell into a fitful sleep.

                He dreamed of his parents. He had discovered while traveling that his parent had been traveling priest; they had had quite a reputation. They had traveled from town to town spreading the word of the true gods. This had been unusual and many people saw them as heretics, blasphemers against the church. They had earned many people’s respect though. Every town they stopped in, they had helped out greatly. One town had had a small plague and the local noble had isolated them. Thran’s parents had discovered that the local mages guild had been using kobolds for experiments and the plague had spread from the kobolds. Thran’s mother and father drove out the evil mages guild and cured the captive kobolds. The dream was of this incident, how Thran pictured it anyways. He also dreamed of the man who had told him about his parents, he remembered how the man had said that Narinda had murdered them. The witch had been the mid-wife. Being barren herself she had stolen Thran, and murdered his mother and father. She had poisoned his father while he waited for his son to be born. She had murdered his mother right after he had been born, stabbing her with a poisoned dagger. He knew that it was the truth. He began to weep.

                Thran felt water drip onto his face; he rapidly awoke but kept his eyes closed. He squinted seeing a dark shape standing over him. He felt a great sense of dread; the shape was clearly a goblin. The water that had hit him was not water at all; it was the blood dripping off the already used warhammer the goblin held high above his head.  Without thinking, going clearly on instinct, Thran reached into the hot embers next to him and flung them into the goblin’s face. The goblin stumbled back dropping the hammer and bellowing with pain. The noise woke up the remaining soldiers.

                Thran looked around franticly picking up his sword. There were at least ten goblins in the cave and to his horror they had clearly been working while he slept. Many of the soldiers did not rise at the sound of the hammer or yell; they lay in pools of their own blood. Thran couldn’t tell how many men were left in the dim light, there might not be but him and one other. Thran’s training kicked in, he lunged at the injured goblin and drove the blade deep into its abdomen. He pulled back and started toward the exit, he couldn’t fight so many in close quarters. He reached the exit after dispatching another goblin that had been finishing off one of the night watchmen. He finally made it outside and heard the sounds of a small battle to his left.

                He ran over a small ledge to get a look. Three human soldiers were fighting off a group of six goblins. Thran ran quickly down the slope of the rocks and attacked the goblins’ backs. He sunk his blade deep into the upper back of a goblin. Thran tried to pull the blade back out but it was caught in the ribs and armor of the smelly beast. The goblin next to Thran’s victim turned and swung his mace. Thran had seen the blow coming to late; he felt an immense pain in his chest. All of the sudden he was surrounded in a brilliant white light. The light hurt his eyes and the pain in his chest intensified until he thought he was going to black out, and then he did.

                Thran woke feeling a cold ache all through his body. He realized he was looking up a cave’s ceiling and tried to set up. After a few minutes of trying he finally got to his feet. He looked down to his chest where the goblin had hit him; there was only a small bruise.  The cave was not the one where they had camped this one was even smaller. He limped toward the entrance. When he stepped out he saw that he was at least thirty yards from where the other cave was.

                He walked down the rocky incline, slowly so he didn’t fall the rest of the way. As he neared the cave he saw the place where he had been knock unconscious. The rocky surface in the area was charred black, nine burned corpses lay around, six were clearly goblins one with Thran’s sword unscathed still in its back. Thran looked in disbelief, “What happened here?” He walked over and pulled his sword from the charred body; the body collapsing as he did. The sword looked fine not one burn mark on it. He made his way back to the cave.

                Once inside the cave he saw the bodies of his friends and fellow soldiers. He collapsed to his knees. There were only two goblin bodies, the ones he had slew. Thran felt a white-hot rage go through him overwhelming the cold ache. He would find the goblins that did this and make them pay, but first. It was impossible to burry his comrades in the solid rock ground; he collected off the bodies and mats. He laid them all close together, if he couldn’t burry them he would build them a respectful funeral pyre. He stayed and watched the bodies burn to ashes. Afterwards he ran into the cave collecting the essentials he would need. So once again in his life he was on his own.

                The mind flayer stopped for a moment. These were all interesting memories, but not enough to keep this boy alive so far. It would have to dig deeper one more time and if it didn’t find anything good it would simply devour Thran’s brain. The mind-flayer rested for a moment while Thran kneeled in a dazed stupor. The mind-flayer placed his hands and tentacles back on Thran’s head.

                A bright white light could be seen; it surrounded and absorbed all shadow. There seemed to be a person in the light a woman…

                The mind flayer reeled away from Thran. “What is this?” the mind flayer screamed in its thoughts. He couldn’t seem to see the rest of the memory. He would not be denied, he ran back up to Thran grabbing him forcefully. He strained his mind to the extent of his psionic abilities.

                The light was there again outshining almost every thing. In the light with the woman, kneeled Thran. The woman was an aged grandmother one second and then a beautiful maiden the next. The woman spoke with a melodious voice ever changing, “Thran, you will be my champion. Just like your father and mother and their parents before them. You have the power in you. You first discovered it in the caves. You will use this pure power to smite evil in the name of good. Alas you will not remember me once you leave my sanctuary. You must seek out Gralthin, an evil being; he will unlock your memories. You will be drawn to his presence without knowing why. He will unintentionally bring the downfall of his evil life. You will succeed, you will wield The Avenger, it will need to die before it can be reborn, and with it you will begin your crusade against the dark. Now go with love my child.” Thran rose…

                Gralthin stumbled back as a searing pain rose up into his arms and tentacles. Thran stood his eyes ablaze with white-fire. “Yes, now I remember. Gralthin you have indeed brought about your downfall, Elothin, the white goddess has seen your evil deeds. You will be the first, an example to all those who do evil!” Gralthin trembled; he saw that his end was near. Gralthin then stood up straight, no this would not be the end, and he let loose with all psionics, his many years mastering his mind would save him. Thran stumbled back from the mental assault. Thran started to become dazed and disoriented, he saw his family’s blade on the floor. He stumbled over and with much effort picked it up. Instantly his mind cleared and the white-fire roared. The remaining half of the blade began to glow with the same light in Thran’s eyes. A large burst of light blinded Gralthin, when it cleared Gralthin screamed in terror. The blade was forged a new. The blade was engulfed in white-fire and the phoenix symbol seemed to move with life.

                Thran walked calmly over to Gralthin. Gralthin did not move paralyzed by fear. Thran drew back the blade, “Your reign of evil ends here. In the name of Elothin and all that is good!” Thran drove the blazing sword deep into Gralthin’s heart. Gralthin let out a death-wail. He began to glow white and black seeped from his very being. The black was overtaken and consumed by the white light. Gralthin’s body disappeared into nothingness. Thran took a step back, his eyes dimming back to normal. The blade, Avenger, dimmed also, it resumed its look of a normal sword.

                Thran walked out of the caves, now knowing the way out. He would continue on his family’s legacy. He would rid the world of the leeching evil. Thran smiled as he walked. He had new meaning in his life; from now on he would be Thran Alwry Paladin of Elothin.