The Legacy A story of Grandilar by Debby Legner

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The Legacy A story of Grandilar by Debby Legner

From the hilltop, Thorn studied the forest that lay before him like a vast ratty carpet. He tried to suppress a shudder. Nearly a hundred years since Deathday and spots still smoldered with sickly greenish balefire. Smoke shrouded the great trees with a haze that blended forest with sky in the distance. Below Thorn the town of Woodsgate huddled against the hillside as if cringing from the looming darkness that was the old forest. Once the town had been a prosperous trade city with people from all over Grandilar coming to buy finely crafted goods from the elven villages of the forest whose folk discouraged visitors within the forest itself. From his vantage point, Thorn could see the outline of the lake and river that had brought traders from the south and east. Now the lakebed held the village’s best farms and the river cut a narrow path between the fields. The old stone pier was the base of a watchtower, one of several in the palisade that ringed the town. When the dragon keep far to the east had been destroyed that dreadful day, the magical backlash had created a huge firestorm that swept over the forest. Fierce crackling winds had sucked up the lake and destroyed much of the town. Only a remnant of the vast forest remained, due perhaps to the moisture of the lake waters. Woodsgate had been fortunate in its isolation. Where larger dragon holds had fallen the expanding waves of warped energy had clashed with those of other holds until the earth had rebelled and the very fabric of magic was bunched and torn. Past the eastern edge of the forest the land was a deadly waste of molten slag and stinging black dust where nothing, including magic, could survive. The Blackwater Mountains now raised their twisting and tortured peaks where a fertile river valley had stood. He had seen them once in the distance during his journeyman time.

Thorn stretched, settled himself on a boulder, and turned his attention to the town below. It had grown in his absence. Many of the old burned-out buildings had been replaced by new homes and businesses. Where once had stood only the elegant and airily carved elven structures, now he could see the squat stonework of dwarven halls and the boxy human buildings. Like most of the country the survivors of slaughtered villages, blasted caverns and sundered clans had come together seeking a safe haven in this new nightmarish world. Class and racial strife came with the blending of cultures but the constant threat of warp storms and bandit raids had, so far, held the internal conflicts in check. At least here it was so. Other places had not been so lucky. He’d seen the broken towns where folk had been so busy fighting among themselves that warpspawn had wiped them out or necromancers and bandits had taken over turning everyone into slaves. Woodsgate was fortunate that they had been isolated long enough to build walls and had clean land enough to grow crops to feed themselves. The first walls, he knew, were built to keep warped forest creatures from overrunning the town. Fortunately, they were also effective against the roving bands of raiders that sprang up after the last armies disbanded. Thorn remembered his terror during one such attack when he was a child hiding with his tiny sister in the cellar as the house burned above them. He could not see and could barely breathe when he’d felt his mother’s hands pulling them to safety. She had briskly checked them over and dusted them off before returning to the palisade with her bloody sword. His mother was quite a lady, a fighter and storyteller and the reason he had returned here today.

Thorn’s mother had been born in a tree village near the eastern dragon clanhold. Her father was a scholar who worked in the clanhold’s library and often tutored both elven and dragon students. His mother was the village healer and herbwife. Thorn loved her stories about his warrior ancestors who included a granduncle who was rendered as a heretic for following Valaria. The stories about life in the wildwood village seemed magical to him. Imagine living in homes built into the trees themselves! His favorites, though, were the tales about the dragons who lived in the clanhold. Some of the village children scoffed at her dragon stories, saying there were no real dragons, but Thorn believed with all his heart. She taught him many things about the history of his clan but it wasn’t until Thorn was preparing to leave for his journeyman training that she told him of Death Day. He was packing his carryall when his mother came in. She had a strangely sad expression as she asked him to sit by her and listen. Then in a soft voice she began to speak.

“I was working with the tree weavers that morning, lacing lintel tree branches together so they would grow into a floor for a new home. It was a lovely day and I was daydreaming about my own future home and husband. My mood was abruptly broken by the bass tones of the clanhold alarm bells. Warriors erupted from the village as the defenders raced toward the mountain. I ran to get the emergency medical supplies praying they would not be needed this time. It all seemed unreal. What could disrupt the dragon holy days when they spirit walked with their ancestors? Who would dare attack a dragonhold? Mother and I prepared for the worst then waited. It seemed forever before the first wounded straggled in with stories of a huge army of warpspawn and mercenaries led by necromancers. Our women and children worked feverishly binding wounds and healing what we could so our fighters could return to the battle that raged ever closer. Hours passed then a great wail went up from the mountain and the earth seemed to shudder and grow dark. The anguished news came down that the clanhold had fallen and the dragons were dying. The village began to evacuate but we waited for father who’d been working in the clanhold that day. Finally he appeared through the smoke with a few other survivors. I don’t know how long we ran, days or weeks maybe. I still have nightmares of that run through the burning forest with branches grabbing at me and arrows coming out of the dark to strike down my companions. We fled west, away from the ruddy glow of the burning mountain, until we were too exhausted to continue. Father’s friend Iron Oak had rescued a heart stone from a burned out village. With the stone’s magic we could build a refuge for ourselves and other survivors. Father planted the stone at the roots of the new heart tree in a quiet clearing and mother used her earth magic to quicken the tree’s growth. The human wizardling Tremaine created a shield against the warped magic storms that raged through the forest. Marble Hand taught us how dwarves build with earth and stone. The work was difficult but we kept hoping more refugees would find us. There were plenty of marauders and warpspawn to fight off but no others. Mother and Tremaine designed a maze to keep the warped creatures away. The elders decided their task would be to write down and preserve their knowledge so that it would not be lost to the future. I had nothing to add to that task and longed to be out helping with the disaster that had shaken our world. When I left the forest I found training with the militia and later with the Valarians. Eventually, I settled here in Woodsgate.”

Thorn was shocked, his mother a Valarian! He believed in dragons but Valarians and shape shifters were something else again. They spent the night talking about the world and the need to actively fight the evils that were distorting the very fabric of life. The next morning Thorn set out with a new purpose and determination. A few years later he heard of his mother’s passing. She had always planned to return to the refuge and see what had become of her people there but time, children and the scars of countless battles prevented her. She was only 122 but the fires of Death Day seemed to have sapped her strength making her old before her time. Thorn promised he would one day make that journey for her.

That was thirty years ago. The young Thorn had been trained in witchcraft by his mother. Later he sought out a master wizard and slaved for him several years in order to learn that craft. Then he found a shaman who would allow him to enter the spirit plane and learn that lore. After many trials he finally achieved the rank of Glyph Master. Thorn rubbed his master’s ring with its three circles centered on a dragon’s head as he reflected on all he had learned. He was ready now to fulfill the promise he’d made to his mother. Tomorrow he would enter that gray green wilderness and find out what became of his ancestor’s refuge. No one had entered the forest and survived to tell of it since the great rending. But no one had had his purpose or his knowledge of the refuge waiting in the green depths. Still, he’d pray tonight for Lady Earth and Lord Wildwood to send his mother’s spirit to guide his steps and watch his back.

Story Corner Part Two