The Defenders of Redrock Point
Author/Beta: Hannah Vanderham
Published: 11/11/10
Enjoy, and Happy Veterans Day! :D
It has been five hundred years since Lord Shadow released his monsters on the lands of our world. Five hundred years since the plague of the Shavak was first created. Five hundred years during which men have learned to fear the dark.
I must explain myself, or the tale that is to follow will make no sense for you. Lord Shadow, or Vannyer Shavak in Old Asart, was a master of black magic, a user of the arcane. His real name has been lost to the ages, but his use of black magic is one thing that will never be forgotten. He had tried to keep his activities a secret, but had been found out. Asart Ya has never been tolerant of black magic; they cast him out of Asart Ya, into the Great Wilderness where he would make his home for the next twenty years.
He was not finished, however. His anger burned against the Asart, his own people. He could not find it in himself to forgive them for casting him from his homeland. He swore revenge, promising that he would somehow find a way to destroy them for what they had done.11
No one took his threat seriously. The Great Wilderness is nearly devoid of human life. Since the Asart had conquered the barren lands a thousand years ago, no one had been fool enough to wish to stay in the wilderness and try their luck against all the forces of nature. Instead, they formed the first civilization of the world, framed by the jagged cliffs of the Redrock Mountains.
Slowly this civilization developed, discovering the principles of metal working, carpentry, and masonry. Great structures were created, either carved from the very stones of the Redrock Mountains or built from the blocks. Great fortresses were created, protection not only against the surrounding wild, but from the roaming bandits that were the only inhabitants of the Wilderness. This effectively killed the bandits chances of successfully preying on the people of Asart Ya. For nearly two decades before Vannyer Shavak was banished, the bandits had seemed to disappear.
Therefore, since it seemed very unlikely that he would be able to produce any help from the uncivilized areas of the Wilderness, people promptly forgot him. This, however, proved to be a deadly mistake.
It is unknown exactly how long Vannyer Shavak worked on his creations. It has been rumored that he had started his work before his exile, though most agree that he began his work as soon as he decided that he had to make his former people pay. Regardless, after twenty years of relative peace in the land of Asart Ya, something strange happened.
In the blackness of night, without the slightest warning, the king of Asart Ya was murdered in his sleep. There was no possible means of entry, however; the guards were at their posts all night, and the king preferred to sleep in a room with only one entrance to guard against the threat of assassination. There were no suspects, and even the guards had the perfect alibi; they changed shifts at exactly the time that the assassination took place, and investigated as soon as they heard the cries. There was nothing inside but the slain king.
The kingdom was in an uproar immediately. The king s son, Prince Polinour, ascended to the throne and ordered an immediate investigation into his father s murder, but nothing was discovered. There wasn t even a weapon in the room, not anything that could have caused the razor-thin slashes that had killed the former king.
The kingdom was on edge. No one felt safe, and for good reason. Over the next few weeks, many people died the same way, the same slashes killing them, but no one was able to find out how this was done.
For nearly two months, the kingdom was terrorized by an unknown enemy, one that could attack someone without them having any chance to protect themselves. The new king had somehow been spared the fate of his father, but his people were falling and, at the same time, losing their confidence in the young man.
Finally, by a fortunate accident, the killer was discovered. King Polinour, unable to sleep one night, lit the candle beside his bed so that he could see in the late hour. By some incredible coincidence, the killer was there when he lit his candle. As the meager flame came to life, King Polinour was just barely able to see something beside him. Rather, he was unable to see anything where he knew that he should see his father s coat of arms on the wall.
His consternation was short-lived, however, as a sudden, horrible shrieking proceeded from beside him, followed by the sudden mysterious appearance of the tapestry from out of the dark.
King Polinour had inadvertently been the first Asart to ever see a Shavak. The deep dark that he had seen in place of the tapestry was the creature that had murdered so many men in the deep dark of night.
The Shavak, you see, are shadow incarnate. They are the very essence of blackness, absorbing all light around them so that they seem to be mere spectral shadows when seen in the light. When moving in the dark, they are nearly undetectable, and they can slip through even the smallest cracks. Their only weakness, as King Polinour had been fortunate to discover, was light. Although they were not destroyed by it, even the slightest light could remove from them most of their power.
King Polinour was unable to capture the Shavak, but he suspected, and rightly so, that he had come face-to-face with the murderer who had plagued them. Having seen the reaction of the creature when exposed to even his candle s slight light, he gave birth to the one tradition that still remains in force today; he suggested that everyone be sure to sleep with a light in their room to guard against the creatures.
It seemed strange, grown men sleeping with candles and lanterns in their room, some even afraid that it might somehow go out during the night. Still, however, they did it, and the murders in the night were all but eliminated.
Asart Ya was not yet safe from the Shavak, though. After about two weeks of near silence from the shadow, a note appeared on King Polinour s desk. It was an ultimatum from Vannyer Shavak. He warned that, if King Polinour would not cede the throne to him within the next month, it would be taken by force.
King Polinour was quick to reject the terms of surrender provided in the note. Instead, he mustered his troops, sending them to the fortress of Redrock Point. Built in the only safe passage through the Redrock Mountains, it was a formidable defense against invasion from the outside. So it was that Polinour depended on it as his first line of defense from whatever attack Vannyer Shavak could bring with him.
On the last day of the two weeks, a solid line of shadow crept towards the fortress from the east. No one dared guess what it might be, but it was the overwhelming opinion, though unspoken, that the doom of Asart Ya had come.
The line of shadows proved to be ranks upon ranks of the creatures, the Shavak, of the kind that had terrorized the nights of Asart Ya only a few months past. Their strange forms moved along the ground with no apparent means of locomotion, moving even in the sunlight to get to their target.
It was at this point that the Asart first saw the forms of the Shavak in any detail. They were vaguely humanoid, with definite arms and legs, but they lacked anything that could truly be considered a head. Their movements were smooth and absolutely silent, a feature that made the Shavak even more terrifying; it amplified the feeling that they were naught but ghosts, yet all of Asart Ya knew what these things had been able to do in the past.
They stopped just outside of bowshot, standing and watching as the sun set behind the fortress. Torches were lit among the Asart well before the sunset, and they were set extremely close together along the walls. Even as the last of the sun s light disappeared, however, the area where the Shavak had been standing was plunged into the dark of night along with the rest of the surrounding lands.
It was only an hour later when the first of the Shavak were seen at the bottom of the walls. The terrified defenders on the wall fired volleys of arrows into the darkness, hoping to somehow destroy the strange creatures. They were surprised when their arrows actually affected the creatures. It seemed that somehow, although they seemed as some intangible specter before, the only thing keeping them from being destroyed had been the lack of opportunity.
The men took heart, continuing their volleys into the ranks of shadow. Finally, the Shavak came over the wall, meeting the swords of the defenders with nothing but their arms. It was discovered that the only way to defeat one of these creatures was to strike the core of its body. When one was felled, it would fall to the ground with a haunting shriek, then dissolve into a plume of pure black smoke and rise out of sight.
The defenders fought valiantly, but the creatures had the advantage of unnatural speed and the element of fear to assist them, and they quickly pushed the defenders from the wall and into the main fortress.
The defenders were expecting the Shavak to press them, push them back further and try to dislodge them from the fortress entirely, but, as dawn neared, the creatures drew back, returning to the walls. They all gathered quickly, but made no further moves to attack. For the entire day they waited, the Shavak for their own reasons, and the defenders for fear of the creatures.
At dusk the attack resumed, and, while the defenders knew how to fight the creatures now, they were unable to hold, and had lost more than half of the city by the arrival of dawn. Once more, as the sun rose, the Shavak drew back and formed a line halfway into the fortress, just standing and waiting. Arrows were fired into their ranks, but the creatures somehow evaded all of their attempts to hit them.
Night of the third day fell, and the Shavak once more pressed the defenders back without mercy, driving through the ranks of men with seeming ease. Before dawn, King Polinour was forced to draw his forces out of the fortress, allowing the Shavak to take the most effective and most important defense of the land of Asart Ya.
The defenders, now bereft of the stronghold that they had used for protection, formed a line across the width of the pass that the fortress mostly blocked. Another day was spent watching and waiting, and another night in a bitter struggle to hold the pass.
This time the defenders held, although their numbers were diminished. The Shavak, on the other hand, seemed just as numerous as they had been when they had first been seen marching towards the fortress. Even though many were stricken down by the defenders swords, every time one fell, it seemed that three came in its place. No matter how many fell, there were still just as many left to slowly whittle down the defenders to the breaking point.
During the next day, something finally changed about the silent stalemate between he two sides. For the first time since the Shavak invaded, Vannyer Shavak appeared. He gloated over having taken the Asart s proudest fortress, assuring them that, no matter how long they held, they would eventually be crushed. The men were already demoralized, and many were even more disheartened by their enemy s proclamation of their certain end. As night began to fall, however, the exhausted fighters once more prepared to hold off their invaders.
The night was once more a near stalemate. Both sides gained ground, only to lose it again as soon as they had taken it. As dawn neared, however, the men pursued the Shavak to the fortress, then into it as no move was made to close the gates. The men attacked relentlessly, and the Shavak, weakened by the daylight, were pushed back quickly. Even so, as the men gained ground, the Shavak were still present in numbers far exceeding their own, and harried them, decreasing their numbers.
As night fell, the Shavak began to regain their full strength, and they pushed the defenders back until they were just hardly inside the gates. As dawn came, however, both sides silently agreed to resume the silent wait of the other days. The men slept as the shadows watched, neither side making any moves against the other.
Just before dusk, King Polinour ordered his men to attack again, trying to keep just a bit of the daylight s advantage on the creatures. They succeeded in pushing the monsters back considerably, but after the night had fallen, the creatures once more prevailed, forcing the valiant men to fight for all they were worth just to hold their ground.
At dawn the next day, it was clear to King Polinour that they were far too weak to withstand another such attack. Their losses were in the thousands, and the remainder of their forces were too tired to continue the fight as it was. Polinour knew that the time had come to take the one risk that would either make or break their chances of holding.
Giving his men only an hour after the day s standoff had begun, he then rallied them all to him and ordered a full charge into the ranks of Shavak. The stated objective of the attack was to continue pressing them, no matter the losses, until they either broke the Shavak s lines, or die trying. As they charged for the final time towards the Shavak, every man knew that there was no retreat from this battle.
They hit the Shavak with a zeal that they had not matched for the entire battle up until this point. They pushed the Shavak back until they had been completely dislodged from the main city, then fought for one night on the fortress s killing grounds. The men were completely drained of all strength by the end of the night, but the Shavak refused to back down, even after dawn, and started to overwhelm the efforts of the Asart.
It was at this time that Vannyer Shavak once more made himself known, emerging from amid the Shavak himself to meet King Polinour in battle. He carried a huge bastard sword in one hand, and a pitch black shield, and was dressed in black plate armor. As he met Polinour, the Shavak gave the two a wide berth.
The two dueled privately in what seemed to be their own private war. Though exhausted after the length of the fight up until this point, King Polinour rose to the occasion, fighting with his own two-handed blade against the King of Shadows. He was fueled by his rage and hate for the man that had been the one who ordered his father s death.
The battle around them wore on, and the defenders slowly lost ground. As they were pushed back beyond the two fighters, they watched in dismay as Polinour s sword flew from his grasp. He moved to recover it, but was knocked down by his opponent s shield. Unable to defend himself, he waited to join his father in death.
It was not to be, however. By some fortunate chance, one of the defenders fired an arrow towards a Shavak, but missed when he was struck from behind by another. The result was an errant shot that very definitely cost Vannyer Shavak his conquest of Asart Ya.
The arrow found the lord s leg, causing him to lose his concentration on the battle. As he stumbled, trying to rip the arrow from where it had lodged between his thick armor plates, Polinour recovered his sword and attacked. Vannyer Shavak was able to hold off the attacks for a few moments, but the wound caused him enough pain to distract him. In a few minutes, King Polinour disarmed him.
The Shavak closed on the duel now, intent on saving their lord from harm, but the battle was already lost. He was stabbed through the chest before they arrived. King Polinour wheeled to face them as they arrived, but they simply flowed around him, moving to their commander.
Around him, the battle had stopped. The Shavak had simply turned and fled when they saw that their commander had fallen. Within an hour, the Shavak were gone, taking with them their wounded commander, and leaving behind a weakened, but victorious, Asart Ya.
The recovery process took several years. Several breaches had been made by the Shavak, with the intention of making the fortress unserviceable to the Asart. The breaches were repaired, however, even before the next time an Asart saw a Shavak anywhere near their lands.
For the next few years, there was a constant fear of attack from the Shavak. Measures were taken to stiffen the defense in the event of an attack, and many new fighters were recruited and trained, with the possibility of a Shavak attack in mind. After a few generations had past, though, the fear had passed into memory, memory into legend, and legend into the realm of
thing forgotten.
Over five hundred years pass. Asart Ya prospers, expanding her borders from the Asart Valley. Great leaps are made on every front, and everything seems to be going well. No one seems to have any worries. Unfortunately, peace cannot last.
Unnatural black clouds have formed to the east, directly above the realm of the Shadows, Shavak Ya. While it has been dark there for years already, nothing like this has ever happened there before. As the clouds gather, the Asart begin to wonder: What sort of evil is stirring to the east? Have the Shavak been organized against them once more?
Despite all of the theories that the people invent, they cannot accurately predict what is coming. All they can do is watch and wait.
Hannah Vanderham's Notes:{Hello; i've thought of another, yes! Another story this might be interesting, confusing, weird, but when were're far off in the seasons you'll understand soon, but today is Veterans Day, i'm going to visit my Grandmother and Grandfather, though I both call them, "papa," and "mama," and todays my Mom's Birthday and I gotten her a ruby red necklace that matches her dress my dad picked out for the dinner and some black high-heels. xD, it exactly looks like Kuronue's Pendant, O.e I really hope I didn't actually stoled it from him, anyways I hope you've had a Happy Veterans Day, and i'll see you later, BYES!}
-A fimiliar, yet angry Bat Youkai flies through Hannah's bedroom window-
"Where's my PENDANT! Hannah!"