Sons of Ironstorm - Book 2: Griffon's Call

Chapter 25: Unexpected Fortune

<<We dark elves too were creations of the Shadow, Thom,>> Dezi flatly pointed out, her eyes hooded. <<Yet by the Silver Flame did we repent of the filth that filled our souls and did become great soldiers of the Light. Will you deny these elves, your kin and returned to the Light by the power of the Star Sword, the same opportunity?>>

<<That's different, Dezi, ...>> Thom began to retort, turning to look at Dezi, his gaze hot.

<<No, it's not,>> Shawn bluntly declared, cutting into the debate before it grew even hotter. <<The ability to forgive separates us from the creatures of the Shadow.>> He looked over at Feladorn.

<<We help them.>>

He once was a captain in Elvenfast's Home Guard, decorated for his service in protecting the High King's capital in the long cycles before the Var Ethisdil reached out to the scattered elven clans in the half remembered time before the chaos of the Diaspora. Then he fell to the smooth words of the powerful cleric, Gerumenum, who promised fame, power, and money for his services and gripped by a strange, feverish greed, he began his journey away from the Light into the Shadow.

Embracing his new allegiance, he fought against those he once called 'brother' and 'friend' in the eleven cycles of civil war against the Aeshin'laur alliance, thinking the Utterance folly. That is, until this day when, in a wave of cleansing light, his doubt, anger, greed, frustration and self loathing were swept away. In their wake, like clean spring water being poured into an empty vessel, knowledge of the Utterance's truth and the power of the Wielders rushed into his mind. And, with words screamed into the battle-torn air of the concourse, he pledged himself to the Light and to washing away his treachery with his very blood.

And so, when a tjor'riin blade cut through the thick part of his leg, opening his femoral artery to spill his blood onto the already blood-darkened floor, he found himself silently rejoicing that, at long last, after sending nearly a full twenty tjor'riin to their deaths he would make the final payment to buy back his soul from the Shadow's dark vaults. He wasn't quite ready however to see the tjor'riin who cut him down, fall itself, an Aeshin'laur fletched arrow sprouting in its chest like a macabre flower to punch it back to fall to the floor where it thrashed out the last shades of its thin life. Then the concourse lit up with ancient magic as wave after wave of rushing sensation rippled over him as powerful spells began their work.

He blinked, not wanting to believe it. Those they had hunted, the Wielder of the Star Sword himself, were they now coming to the aide of those who once were traitors? Then all doubt was erased when a powerful form stepped out of the growing gloom that was his dwindling vision as his life continued to escape out his torn femoral, reaching out and leaving a glowing sigil hovering over his body.

Then he was being helped to his feet by strong hands.

<<Stand, friend,>> a warm voice urged, the accent Aquilan. <<You're not finished quite yet.>> Then the voice's owner was moving on, his presence a brilliant beacon of light in the heart of midnight. And in that moment the former captain of Elvenfast's Home Guard knew who he now would kneel to.

<<We've turned the tide,>> Feladorn reported, pausing just long enough to loose his last arrow to drop a tjor'riin soldier who, upon spotting the knot of elves working their way down onto the battle-torn concourse floor, had foolishly decided to charge them. The shadow soldier's abruptly limp body quickly joined those of hundreds of its kin, now liberally heaped about the floor, most of them bearing the brutal marks of undeniably powerful sa'anish magic.

To say the Wielder of the Star Sword was efficient and effective in battle was a gross understatement. In mere moments what had been a near rout of the handful of surviving Ka'thesck elves was rapidly reversed to an overwhelming victory for them.