"Have everyone here return to their posts. If we are attacked now, we would be overwhelmed." Commanded Nasuada as she striffled past Jörmundur.
"Yes, my Lady."
The queen, followed by the chiefs of her army and several advisors, quickly retreated to the council room for war purposes. The council room was a round building that stood next to the catidel, and had the capability to hold over a hundred people. The structure had a large, rectangular, stone table centered on the marble floor.
The room was kept darker than most peoples' liking, however, when they entered werelights popped into existance, anchored along support pillars and suspended above the table.
The council filed to their seats, Nasuada remained standing at the head of the congregation. "As you all know, we have lost all communication with the west coast. Now, we have sent battalions to Surda, Feinster, Teirm, and Carvahall in hopes of preventing these creatures from making their way farther inland. I know it seems far fetched, but we are blind in this war. Sightings have made their way as far as Beletona and Yazuac, but niether are under attack just yet. Gentlemen, we are looking at a genocide. Whatever these things are, I believe that they are here to exterminate us."
This brought soft murmurs from the war council, most of the military chiefs shook their heads and voiced their thoughts.
"We can't be sure if this is a genocide just yet. Maybe they killed everyone along the coast, but who says they will keep going."
Nasuada looked down at the table. "Nearly a fifty thousand people lived in Tierm alone. And Surda," she looked up at the council, "housed more than ten times that of Tierm. No reports of survivors have reached us as of yet, leading me to believe that there are none. This may not be a genocide, but we must treat it as one, for these monsters came here with a purpose of destruction and that will mean life or death when it comes to defending ourselves."
"Yes, I'll admit, it seems reasonable, but what will happen when these things reach us. I mean we lost...it's just that..." The chief's jaw went slack and he hung his head.
"What is the problem, Gannel?" She asked.
The man looked up, his eyes red from holding back tears. "Well, your speaking of a genocide and no survivors from the attack. I just don't want to believe it." Nasuada gave him a confused look, which he noticed and replied. "My wife and kids were in Tierm when the attack started."
The others huffed with sorrow, many in the room lost loved ones in wars before, they knew how the man felt and how hard it was to live with that knowledge. Nasuada remained still, she felt sorry for him. "I'm sorry." She finally managed to say.
"We have suffered a grevious defeat." Nasuada murmured. She pressed her lips together, sorrow and dispair mixed in equal portions in her expression. Her eyes glimmered with unshed tears. Stiffening her back, she fixed the war council with an iron gaze. "All we can dare to hope for is that they survived, that there are many survivors."
The chiefs of military nodded their agreement. "As you wish, my Lady." One said, standing, his chest puffed out and his fist wrapped firmly around the pommel of his sword. "Shall I prepare the royal battalion and send word to our allies."
She nodded then sent them on their way, all leaving her standing alone as the last of the council filed out the door. She spotted a young boy shoving his way through the procession, soldiers were chasing after him.
"Lady Nasuada!" He shouted as the soldier grabbed his shoulders and pulled him back. The members of the war council turned and waited to see what was happening.
She quickly rounded the table and rushed towards the tanglement of soldiers and the messenger. "Hold on. What is it you want?"
The soldiers stared at her, but let the boy turn to the queen, still holding onto him. "We just got contacted by a man that says there are survivors from the attack on Carvahall."
Her heart lept as she thought of Murtagh.
The rich clack soil was cool agianst Roran's hand. He picked up a loose clod and crumbled it between his finger, noting with approval that it was moist and full of decomposing leaves, stems, moss, and other organic matter that would provide exellent food for crops. But that wasn't what he was trying to determine.
Getting back onto his horse, Roran rode to the front of the column of a hundred or so survivors he had managed to help escape from Cravahall when it appeared the city was no longer theirs, most of the survivors were soldiers who were able to fight their way out while most of the citizens died during the attack. He reigned in his horse next to Murtagh, scratching his chin while he studied the lay of the land. Before them was a vast expanse of undulating grass, dotted with occasional stands of willow and cottonwood trees. Hawks hunted above, while below, the grass was full of squeaking mice, rabbits, burrowing rodents and other wildlife. The only evidence that those creatures had ever visited the place before was the swath of trampled vegetation that led toward the eastern horizon, marking the monsters' trail.
Murtagh glanced up at the noonday sun, the skin pulling tight around his eyes as he squinted. "We should set up camp before our shadows are longer than we are tall."
"And then we'll discover whether there are enough of us to drive them away," muttured Roran, "or whether they will just massacre us. For once I'd like to outnumber our enemies."
A grim smile appeared on Murtagh's face. "When has that ever happened."
Roran chuckled, cold heartedly. When they fled Carvahall Roran led the survivors to the north along the great lake. Then they discovered that the monsters had split into groups of fifty and began heading east. Murtagh suggested following the small group that was traveling towards the Anora river as if they were making their way towards Ceunon. Now, just south of the city, they had lost sight of the monsters and were only following their trail.
Six hours later, Roran stood next to Murtagh, hidden within a cluster of beech trees that grew along the edge of a small, flat stream clotted with rushes and strands of floating algae. Through the net of branches that hung before him, Roran gazed upon a crumbling, gray-sided village of no more than twenty houses. Roran had watched with ever-increasing fury as the villagers had spotted the creatures advancing from the west and then had gathered up a few budles of possessions and fled north, toward Ceunon. If it had been up to him, Roran would have revealed their presence to the villagers and assure them they were not about to lose their houses, not if the rest of his companions could prevent it, for he well remembered the pain and desperation and sense of hopelessness that abandoning Carvahall had caused him, and he would have spared them that if he could.
Also, he would have asked the men of the village to fight with them. Another ten or twenty sets of arms might mean the difference between victory of defeat, and Roran knew better than most the fervor with which people would fight to defend their homes.
Roran glanced back at the men under his command, over eighty warriors. They consisted of swordsmen, spearmen, and a half-dozen archers. When the monsters reached the village, they marched straight through it, pausing only to break down the door of each house, most of the creatures had to break apart the walls in order to look inside for their tremendous size limited them access, and tramp through the rooms to see if anyone was hiding inside. A dog ran out from behind a rain barrel, his ruff standing on end, and scurried away.
As the first of the monsters reached the far side of the village, Roran tightened his hand around he haft of his hammer in preparation for the charge, but then he heard a series of high-pitched screams, and a sense of dread overcame him. A sqaud of creatures emerged from the second-to-last house dragging three struggling people; an elderly, white-haired man, a young woman with a torn blouse, and a boy.
The creatures poked the squirmming victims and laughed at their displeasure. Then one of them took the man and slammed him into the wall of the house they came from repetedly until the man didn't move or scream anymore.
Sweat sprang up on Roran's brow. In a low, slow monotone, he began to curse the monster. But when the creatures turned to the woman and child, something inside him clicked and he surged forward, breaking through the wall of branches. Murtagh jumped at the sudden movement and realized what was happening, he signaled Thorn and yelled, "Charge!"
The soldiers burst free from the net of foliage and followed their leader, keeping easy pace with him as they ran downhill, towards the village. Desperate to save the woman and child, Roran urged himself to the limit of his speed. The creatures turned in amazement and seemed to forget about their captives, who fled the scene and into another house on the opposite end of the village.
A line of houses concealed the initial clash from Roran, but he heard a chorus of frantic shouts, then a series of pained growls. Roran looked up in time to see the red dragon drop out of the sky and crush a whole house under his wieght.
Thorn roared and slashed at a monster with his claws, cleaving it in half. Thorn tore into the creatures who were surrounded within the center of the village. Their size caused them to easily clump together and made it difficult for them to move, often resulting in causing injuries to their own campanions. But their containment only made them tougher to fight for they would lash out carelessly, trying to get more room.
Roran glimpsed Murtagh fighting visciously with Zar'roc and the occasional use of magic. The rider was something to fear more than the creatures, for when alongside Thron, the two were nearly unstoppable.
There was a shout of to his left and he saw a creature break free and retreat a little distance, it was nearly twelve feet tall, twice the size of Roran. The creature saw him and began running with his sword held out.
Roran gripped his hammer and remained in the stance he took when fighting anything bigger than him. It was simplier to fight these giants when being a small as possible. But the creature didn't stop, Roran niether wanted him to.
When it was five feet away the monster swung out it's sword, Roran ducked and passed under the creature's legs as it passed over him, recovering from his miss. As it turned Roran surged forward and bashed in it's knee with his hammer, recieving a satisfactory crunch. The abomination fell and howled, leaning on it's good leg.
It growled in pure anger and said. "Don't expect any mercy, mortal. My injury will not hinder my mission."
Roran smirked evily. "But death will." Then without pause, Roran Stronghammer exploded in a yell of hatred and jumped forward, raising his hammer and slamming it down with as much force as he could manage. To his amazement, the creature's skull shattered and it's skin tore open, black blood pouring from the wound.
The creature's corpse collapsed, clearly dead, but Roran kept going. He smashed his hammer into it's face over and over, yelling the entire time. "This is for my family that you took from me!"
A\N: Here you go. You people are amazing, I wish I could thank you for all the support you all are giving to this story. But even then, it wouldn't be enough to cover all that you all have done for this story. I have come up with an idea. I don't know how you'll take it, but here it is: Every so often i will do a chapter dedicated to one person. That one person will be determined by the best response. If you want to be part of this all you have to do is leave a review with an idea, character, or anything that relates to this story, hopefully the previous chapters are enough to give you a basic idea about what is going on. The idea can be your own idea or something from the inheritance cycle you want to see in this story.
But please it has to be related to this story. Don't say that you want Chuck Norris to suddenly appear and destroy all the creatures, though it would be humorous, it doesn't match with this story. But your idea will eventually determine the outcome of the story. This way I can get the readers involved in the story directly. I will, of course, give all credit of the selected idea to the respective person. So if you want your idea brought to life, leave a review and I'll PM you about it, of course you'll have to be signed in. If it is good enough I'll use it. Now I can't promise that I will use every idea that is given to me, but i will try to give those who do a notable acknowledgement of some kind. So tell me what you think, and since i will be gone on vacation for the next few days, you'll have until this weekend to give me the idea cause that is when I'll try and update and that is when I'll try and implement your idea.
Thanks to you all great and amazing readers and supporters. Till next we meet.
-Skoilr