A Warrior's Heart

The Rhadjari

" I give my name to Aserath.I gift him with my life and my blood.

I grant him my war cry and my weapon."

~ The Rhadjari chant and prayer

Aserath,the god of chaos, war and death, was the first god to manifest in Eriphae. Most iskrai, beings who are not human, who were given powers by the gods, believe that Ashemat, his sister, was the first. But that is a believe past down by humans. For eons humans continued to believe that even in the darkest of nights, there was always and would always be a glimmer of light. And that because of that, good would always triumph evil. But what they were blind to is that light cannot shine without darkness. The evil had to be first in order for goodness to save and defeat evil.

And so Aserath was first. The first to look upon Eriphae and see that his dark tendrils of war, chaos and death reached everywhere. Yet he longed to darken the world further, for it seemed that no matter how great his power, still goodness snuffed out his black fire. He looked and looked for a way but found none.

Until he looked at a human.

Humans, beings with not even a speck of the powers he possessed. Aserath realized that in order for his powers to reach every corner of the world, he had to relent some of it to the beings inhabiting that world.

And so one day Aserath, came down to Eriphae and took a human. He brought it to the darkest place, a place dark, that it had not even tasted a grain of light. Aserath held the human, and took out of it, it's soul. Took out of it everything that made it human, weak, mortal and easily extinguishable, and gave it a new soul. One made of darkness and stone.One made to wage war and cause chaos and bring death.

And so the first Rhadjari was born.Born to serve his god, who had granted him powers and made him new.

This story does not end with a Rhadjari.

Nor did it start with one.

I should know, For I was the one made new.

And as I write these words, I cannot even phantom what it was like to be human.

I truly pity those that are still left.

An excerpt from the writings of the First Iskrai.