The Dark Times (pt1)

[Asurion Whitestar]

Dawn breaks on the horizon. Over the turquoise ocean the morning mist and fey fog glows with the warm orange of the sun's light. The waves surging ashore as constant as the rising sun, teal crystal pulses fading as they churned the loose white sand brown with the salty ocean broth. It was breathtaking to behold.

Through the thick mist the elves could see vague silhouettes of dark vessels. Great in number, much more than the small raiding forces they were used to, dirty brown tattered sails pulled them forth, evil chaotic creatures of the sea adorned upon their prows. It was the Norsemen of the Chaos Sea, led by their so called general, Ta'rkrachs. A hulking monster of man, standing no less than eight feet tall, some say his father was a Choas Ogre, which would explain his cannibalistic appetite and paunch appearance.
The Sea Prince had many run ins with Ta'rkrachs before, and even now, with nearly a league between them he could feel his rich odour seeping into his nostrils.
With an angry yet disgusted shudder from the distant stink, the Sea Prince raised his left hand and gestured for his forces to assume their positions.

Dozens of ranks of antsy Seaguard filled the shore, readying their bows, behind them were the Cothiquean Archers, longbows strung, poised with their white fletched arrows at the ready.
Riding along the rocky beach were a score of Shore Riders, ten to the north and ten to the south, each accompanied by a Hylienoc Tide Chaser chariot.
At the heart of the army was several companies of Mistblades the self named Swordmasters of Cothique, to their flanks were the cavalry of Valkyier and Tor Quylann.
The Valkyierii sisters riding their azure Nauglii, adorned with intricate dragon styled barding, golden lances raised with the soft dawn light glistening from their tips, the Silver Helms of Tor Quylann surrounding them, Ithilmar lances shining blue and pointed to the sky.
Behind the cavalry emerging from the forest were the Pride of Athel Silphyn Hunters, with Foques the Great War Lion at their head. At the south peninsular was the famed Sea Hunters of Katlys Avarn, wearing cloaks of slain black kraken and wielding their great hunting spears.
Flying aloft was a pair of Great Eagles of Setheil Eyrie, even higher was the small azure Sea Dragon Quelshian, sensing that her father Asurion would soon need her by his side, she kept a watchful eye on him and readied her nerve for the battle ahead.

Asurion, the Sea Prince was standing on a rocky outcrop of one of his kingdom's long lost Tors, his long dark blonde hair waving in the wind, kept mildly in place by a high pony and his intricate blue coral crown. Adorned in golden armour of scale and plate, with his crest of the White Star emblazoned upon his cuirass, shining golden spear in his right hand, nearly twice his height with long flowing ribbons of earth white and turquoise tied to the top of its shaft, in his left a tall white shield with the White Star stretched across its length, surrounded by gold with a solitary but large turquoise gem in its center. Upon his shoulders was a long elegant cloak of turquoise and earth white, gold designs dancing along the hem.
With the fluttering wind could be seen his mighty golden bow beneath his cloak, given to him by his goddess Malhandël Gallen.

Aethelwynne was perched to his prince's right, atop his proud Nauglir Cliar, the largest of her kin rescued from Naggaroth by the Shadow Warriors of Malever. Wearing his blessed Ithilmar dragon armour of his homeland, a black dragon coiling his breastplate from the right while a white dragon coiled from the left, symbolising the balance of the world, he held a tall dragon helm with a radiant crimson gem clasped by the helm's wings under his arm, letting his long golden hair loose in the gathering wind. Grasping a tall golden stave with the White Star standard flowing from its top, beautifully sewn from the hair of the finest elf maidens from across Cothique, a simple yet extravagantly intricate white and golden field with the White Star emblem in the center, turquoise swirling lines growing like vines from behind the star.

To Asurion's left in a patch of verdant thick grass and clover stood the stunning angelic Auralii, beloved of her dearest prince. Wearing close fitting garments of white with beautiful golden swirls and twists, and a tall mage's crown of the same design, her long white golden blonde hair escaping at her nape. Her magnificent white cloak carried high with the wind, strong golden curls around the corners and turquoise floral patterns along the edges, crescent Sariour emblems holding the cloak about her shoulders. Wielding a powerful staff with the likeness of Lileath bearing twin swords at it's top and an enchanted single edged sword that shrieks fear into the hearts of her enemies.

Together they braced themselves for the inevitable bloodbath that would ensue the Norsemen's beaching.

As the dark ships approached, Asurion could see what made up his abhorred enemy's army.
Hundreds of marauders armed with an assortment of crude weapons, flails, claymores, axes and swords, around half were armed with two weapons, while the rest had only one paired with a crude shield. Some ships were filled with heavily armed and armoured Warriors whom bore black weapons, black armour and black souls. Tortured baying and howling could be heard from most vessels, filled with chaotic hounds.
On several of the larger ships could be seen chaos giants standing half as tall as the masts, one had two heads while another had four arms, the largest of them had mighty tusks growing from its mouth and a manticore perched on its shoulder, digging its claws deep into the giant's flesh, sending thick black blood oozing down its torso.
The elves were outnumbered at least ten to one.

Suddenly, Ta'rkrachs arose out from beneath the wooden railings of the flag ship, standing in full view of his enemy and bellowed in a derogatory tone, "Face me, Sea Prince! Come meet your end as you taste my blade!". The brute then held two fingers to his salivating mouth and let out a deafening whistle, the manticore roared in reply and took off with one mighty flap of its bat like wings, moments layer it landed by Ta'rkrachs' side with a snap of its poisonous jaws, the ogre warrior backhanded the creature that made it stagger slightly, the manticore conceded and lowered a wing as a walkway for its master.
With that, Quelshian spun into a steep drive with nothing more than a thought from Asurion, only seconds later the sea prince leapt high into air and landed cleanly in Quelshian's saddle and with a quick twist of each foot Asurion's feet were locked into place giving him better stability. Together they flew out over the rocky shore and crashing waves at a blistering speed. Within moments Asurion had the whole battlefield and enemy fleet surveyed, then looking deeply into the choppy ocean's depths as if concentrating on a wondrous elven painting. Circling around the enemy's fleet once more, the half-ogre was just getting off his ship's deck atop his feral manticore steed.

With a wave of Auralii's hands in a tidal motion and some sweet sung words of power the sea began to concede, taking the Norse ships with it. She began a second spell but was cut back as the magical energies she conjured were dissipated above her head. Focusing her gaze with her mage-sight she saw maddened dark clouds around three of the ships, the largest of the three had the two headed giant aboard. Auralii quickly opened her palms and swayed backwards a step, humming a soft lullaby while verdant green vines sprang up around her and braced her lithe body. Her fingers trembled as she forced intense magical energy into a ball in front of her that became tangible to the view of the elves around her.
With a flash of light Auralii pushed the ball forth with a last twist of her arms, over the heads of her retinue and out over the wet sand where the coarse waves were only a moment earlier. With nothing but an echoing sound of a droplet in water resonating over the elven ranks the ball submerged itself in the receding tide. The ball left a glowing trail on the surface of the sea, rushing towards the enemy fleet, zigzagging through the ships to its target. The ball then disappeared beneath the large ship that housed the two-headed giant and the chaos wizard that dispelled her last spell, with an immense rush of water the ship was launched high into the air by a glowing waterspout. Auralii whispered a solemn word, "Dai'th" in an instant the top of the spout sprouted eight coiling tentacles of water, spiralling with the spout until they folded back towards the ship when they solidified into giant spiked icicles that shot through the ship and crew with awesome power, one pierced one of the giant's heads and pinned it to the deck through its chest, two more split the ship from port to starboard, while another two destroyed the mainmast and foremast, setting the rigging and shrouds upon the dark crew, trapping them as they plummeted towards the ocean amongst the shrapnel of the remaining vessel.

The remaining two chaos wizards gathered their collective power and forced the tide to return to the shore.
Ta'rkrachs had taken to the sky only a moment earlier but still managed to make out what had happened to his best wizard and let out a murderous war cry against the elves, giving the order for the rest of his army to lay waste to the elves along with him.
The half-ogre searched the sky and waves madly for his hated enemy, the sea prince.
Finding his prey dashing in and out of the surging waves he fixed his gaze upon him and tugged firm on his steed's chain-reins in the direction of his foe. Screaming out once again at Asurion "Face your death,.." and with overflowing drawn-out sarcasm ",.. mighty sea prince!". Hearing the taunt from their foe, Asurion and Quelshian looked sharply at him with a snap of their heads and aggressive frowns. Quickly they changed their coarse, Quelshian banking hard to her left while Asurion leaned hard to his right, pulling his longbow from its sling beneath his right side Asurion drew the bowstring back to his cheek with nothing notched, with a single muttered word a glowing blue arrow appeared hard against the golden bow. Asurion looked off to his left with the direction of the storming wind, then shifted his aim to his high right and let lose the glowing blue arrow he had held firm against his cheek, it flew in a perfect arc before striking the manticore square in his left eye. With a roar of immense pain the creature limped sharply to its right while trying to scratch its eye with its claws, crashing into the nearest chaos ship and snapping the aft mast before coming to rest atop the quarterdeck. Asurion leaned forward as Quel' picked up speed and flew past the injured beast and its master, the sea prince quickly surveyed the area and shot another blue bolt high into the sky that exploded above two of the largest chaos ships before turning back towards the injured manticore and its abominable master.

Just as the blue light began to fade above the pair of large vessels, several large dark shadows emerged in the water around them, striking fear into the marauder crewmen aboard. With a pair of solid thuds the vessels appeared to have struck a reef. All about the ships was silent, deep and high pitched sounds could be heard from the hulls of the ships, with panic setting in amongst the entire crew. With mighty bursts of foamy brine the shadows breached themselves onto and through the upper decks of the stationary ships, they were giant orca from the depths, majestic monochrome creatures with incredible intelligence summoned by the chosen of Malhandël Gallen.

Chaos furies taking to the skies were quickly met by the twins of Setheil Eyrie, scores of the malformed creatures dropped from the dark sky with each swoop and charge from the twins.
The swift eagles were merciless in their attacks, death from above for the bat winged beasts.

Asurion and Quel' approached the injured vessel, when they were just forward from the ship Quel spiralled into a barrel roll and Asurion released his feet with a click and dove onto the main deck with roll before swinging to his feet with spear and shield in hand.
For a moment all was still on the deck, Asurion looked around at the blackened warriors, hatred filling his heart, his breathing steadily deepening as he thought of the most painful ways to kill his foes.
In an instant Asurion was assailed by tens of black clad chaos warriors at a time, surrounding him on all sides. Swinging his spear in a wide circular arc, cutting through the thick chaos armour with ease, decapitating half a dozen of the warriors before they had a chance to react, but upon his second swing, the warriors had moved in, lunging at the prince but only landing a few glancing blows. Asurion pressed back, lunging forward and skewering a warrior through the eye slit of his helmet, then like lightning snapped his long spear back and connected a warrior behind him in the throat, pushing him back and off the edge of the starboard side of the ship. The black warriors moved in further and Asurion called out for assistance "Quel!", Quelshian's attack was as swift as lightning, with a thunderclap she sent a burning ball of white lightning at the warriors, burning through their armour and searing their skin, the electric bolts leaping to all combatants on the main deck, shocking the black warriors but strengthening Asurion through his armour. Moments later the warriors stood jerking and convulsing from the shock as it dissipated, Asurion embraced the last lightning arcs as they were filtered through his armour and into raw energy.

Asurion finished off the last of the chaos warriors mercilessly and with them lying lifeless on the bloodstained wooden deck he turned his attention to Ta'rkrachs now striding towards the prince with the half-blinded manticore swiftly in tow.
Asurion lowered his head as he leered angrily through his brow at Ta'rkrachs, taunting him with a harsh and scolding tone "Come to your death ogre!", knowing full well how much Ta'rkrachs hated to be called an ogre, Ta'rkrachs let out a mighty bellow of pure rage at the prince, Asurion returned the war cry with an abhor filled deep scream "Dieeee....!", as he readied his stance to single combat.
With a snap of the choas general's thick fingers the manticore jumped overhead, lunging at Asurion, the prince quickly raised his shield and braced his spear against the foredeck's railing, readying to pierce the dark creatures heart with its landing, but with a swift swipe of its claw the spear was knocked aside, a few feet to Asurion's right. The manticore landed on his mark, bludgeoning Asurion with its bulk and pinning him to the foredeck's staircase before pushing down with its right foreleg on Asurion's shield. Asurion heard the shield begin to splinter with the immense weight bearing down upon it, but could do nothing in his pinned state. The beast then shifted all of its weight forward onto the prince's shield and body, crushing Asurion's breastplate and cracking ribs with ease, Asurion cried out from the immense pain, knowing he would be unable to withstand the force for much longer. With a resounding thunderclap a huge white lightning ball struck the manticore in the back of the head, sending the force of a lighning bolt coursing through its veins to Asurion's enchanted armour, stunning the beast momentarily and infusing the prince with energy.
With a few solemn sung words of power, Asurion pressed his left hand hard against his breastplate, sending fey light from beneath his armour into his chest and healing most of the injuries to his rib cage, still knowing it was only temporary.

[Elessehta of Yvresse]

Way to much detail for twenty to five in the morning, I'll try again later after I've slept ^_^

[Malossar]

Brave bastard taking on a Manticore and Chaos Lord!

[Aicanor]

Asurion and Quel' approached the injured vessel, when they were just forward from the ship Quel spiralled into a barrel roll and Asurion released his feet with a click and dove onto the main deck with roll before swinging to his feet with spear and shield in hand...

And they say Sapherians are crazy...
I can picture Asurion and his army quite well now, I enjoyed reading it, thanks!

[Elithmar]

Some great description and a very exciting plot - bravo! Thanks.

[Asurion Whitestar]

Thanks for the feedback gentlemen and lady.
It's not to descriptive at parts is it..?

I was wondering if I should have broken it up into when they (being the units) actually come into play, but decided against it as it would slow the pace of the action..

Thoughts..? :3

[Elithmar]

Not too descriptive at all! You only had description at the right parts so that it didn't slow down the action.

[Elessehta of Yvresse]

There was far too much detail to read it with no sleep, almost like Robert Jordan.
But on a second read through it seems to flow quite well.