Soulseeker

Egil 1.0

First draft

Embersea.

That's how the people who lived in the Wildlands used to call the realm beyond the river. The worshippers of the Lord of the Morning believed that the land itself was cursed. They claimed it was the scourge God unleashed upon the elves as punishment for their sins, a way to strip them of their pride. Egil had never thought too much about it. As long as they stayed away from the Wildlands, the white gowns could say whatever they wanted.

Why should he, a proud warrior of house Strom, care about it? The Lord of the Morning wasn't his God. He worshiped the ancestors, men of flesh and blood who had gained everlasting fame fighting and killing their enemies in the field of battle. Yet, even without considering his personal beliefs, why would a God continue to punish such a wretched race?

Of course, the Temple had other ideas.

The cataclysm that had wrecked their lands, pushed an entire race to the brink of extinction and left the rest of the elves to wander in a dead land, was merely the beginning. Half of the worshippers believed that the elves should be left alone to their torment, while the other half wanted to finish what God had begun, exterminating them once and for all.

However, both sides agreed on one thing: the elves had to stay in their cage. They were an impure race. They couldn't be allowed to leave the Embersea and spread their corruption outside, not even as slaves.

Egil used to dismiss such notions as superstitions, to scorn the men that believed in such nonsense deeming them gullible fools or fanatics. However, looking at the grim faces of his men marching on the rocky bank of the Brimstone's river, he wasn't sure of that anymore. He had left his demesne of Strom End three months ago leading the best Warband the Wildlands have ever seen. Five hundred men he had chosen among the best shield brothers of his host, warriors whose only purpose was to plunder, fight and die as any real son of Oril should.

They were warriors forged by countless battles, not levies drafted to fill the ranks of an army. They wore chainmail, carried steel weapons and displayed their rings with pride. They had departed with the sound of warhorns when the first snow already lapped upon the highest peaks. At that moment Egil should have recognized the signs for what they really were: an omen, forecasting the end of Summer.

It wasn't the only warning he'd received.

"Summer is the time for war, not winter!" His old friend Thorvald had said, but even if his words rekindled Egil's fears, he'd chosen to ignore them, sure of the strength of his men and his capability as a leader, the undefeated Warlord.

Yet, despite everything, the campaign had begun under the best auspices.

They had traveled fifty leagues from their stronghold on the slopes of the Dawn mountains to the Pine Hills, the ancestral lands of the Lindbergs. The moral of his men had been high, and laughs and songs, talk of glory and plunder had circled around the campfires at night.

They'd crossed the murky waters of the Brimstone to travel across the Black waste, a plagued plain scorched by fire and sudden dust storms. However, it was when they'd reached the Asp Ridge, that huge snake slithering in the middle of the Emberrsea, that the things really took a turn for the worse. They were scrambling on the mountain's crest when the snowstorm struck without warning. They'd lost half a dozen horses falling down a ravine, but it was the icy bite of the wind blowing like a sharp blade that had reaped the first human victim.

That and the same people they were hunting, the elves. In less than a week, Egil had lost more than twenty men because of the elves relentless ambushes. He and his men had pursued their prey inside that stone maze, losing men at every turn. The elves were like shadows, elusive and sly, hiding in the most recondite clefts to lure them into impossible battles. When an avalanche had claimed the lives of a half-dozen men, Thorvald had advised him to turn back, that even rocks could be used as a weapon by the cunning hunter. His old friend had suggested, or at least implied, that the elves were the architects behind all disasters they'd had met since the beginning.