Work in progress

[krazixs]

A small introduction, I'm a english major with a vice for writting fantasy. Something that's always interested me. I've devoured more books than memory can serve and from all those have pulled together enough of my own creative forces to write my own stories. So anyway one such work in progress is being worked on currently off and on. It's a bit of a bear, as I am close to 500 pages with no end in sight. Anyway I thought I'd share one of the chapters I am more proud of and one that's got the most postive feedback from friends that have read it. So here you go friends, feel free to give feedback and criticism. Trust me as brutal as you think you can be you can't be any more so than some of my current proffessor's so flame away

Nandarea stared blankly at her tomb. It was her tomb, as she had come to think of it. How long had she been in here now? A century seems to have passed since she and her party entered this frozen mausoleum. This land of ice froze not only flesh but burned her emotions away just as surely and left her just as numb. Were her other companions alive? The strangely mixed group of adventurers that had so endeared themselves to her, strange to think that for whatever reason they had chosen to follow her here to their deaths.
Pale light illuminated the area, light just as cold and as unforgiving as the ice it reflected off of. She stared at the floor, her eyes moving over the almost motionless shape resting next to her. Kallion, her faithful devoted protector, lay unconscious and barely alive next to her. No matter how many times she tried healing him, he still lay unmoving, heart barely beating, soul as unresponsive as his mind. He was frozen, cold and chilled to his very being.
This tower’s master, a malevolent and powerful necromancer, had merely touched him. Simply brushed his fingers across Kallion’s chest. It was as if with that touch, he had been robbed of everything that made him alive.
Nandarea shivered. Not so much with cold, but with dread. A fear that steadily ate away at her and made her more afraid than she ever had been in her life. Her friends lost and possibly dead, her only protector, lost to her as much as if he was on the other side of the world.
Looking around the cavern of ice, it resembled more of an amphitheater or a great hall, or throne room. Behind her she felt that penetrating gaze, the stare of the dark mage whom she had sought, out of foolish pride, staring at her, dissecting her soul thread by thread.
She turned to stare at her captor, much in the same way a bird would stare at the snake that had it in its clutches. There Krazixs Jek’Thune sat, pondering her, a hunter determining how to cut and dress his catch. Cold black eyes burned with a fire that seared to the bone. His body was gaunt, thin, but hard as the ice around it. Dead black hair framed a emaciated face, that looked like nothing more than a deaths mask pulled too tight over a grinning skull. Power emanated from the man, a palpable miasma that Nandarea could feel from where she huddled on the floor next to Kallion. The bluish tinge of the necromancer’s skin was not from the cold, he was a dark elf, born evil, and made more so by his vile dedication to the dark arts of the dead.
Thinking of this dark elf necromancer made her think of Darklan Khaine. Darklan a bastard elf, born of the rape of a high elven lady, by a tyrant of a dark elf, Vinus Cravemoore. She pictured his face, noble, standing in his ancient blackened silver armor. He had the air of king, yet he knew his place, probably far better than anyone else. No one would look at him except as an aberration, a mutant of an unholy union. He had been the one to lead the entourage into this forsaken land. His companions knew him, respected him, he had saved each one of their lives at one point. They would follow him anywhere. And they did even though now he and the companions he journeyed here with, were most likely dead. Nandarea replayed that last moment in her mind again.

There he stood in the corridor, facing a horde of shadow beasts and ice orcs, looking like some legend out of a story, ebony sword drawn and himself pulsing with power. Pushing Kallion behind him along with Nandarea all the way to the end of the corridor to where the only way out lay, he faced them for the few moments he had before the rush of overtook them all.
“Kallion, get Nandarea out of here!”
With a grim look and a nod of his head he grabbed Nandarea’s hand and turned to go.
Shaking him off Nandarea grabbed Darklan by the arm.
“What are you doing Darklan!? This is suicide!” she cried. Darklan turned to look at her in the eyes. For the first time she realized, he had never looked at her eye to eye. That look would haunt her forever. With that look she saw into his soul, he bared it all to her with that one look and it would never leave her. She saw the immense love that burned their, love for her. Love that should be an impossibility for a dark elf. There she also saw that he knew of its futility, he knew that nothing would ever become of it. Beyond that she saw something more dreadful, she saw death.
“We have all chosen our path Nandarea, mine ends here, go with Kallion, find the heart of ice!” with that he gripped his dead black sword and turned.
“Get her out of here Kallion, now . . .” he whispered.
Kallion nodded again grabbed Nandarea’s arm and pulled her through the door closing it behind them. All that Nandarea heard after that was a muffled cry and the sound of clashing weapons.
She knew it would haunt her forever.

Nandarea noticed the necromancer smiling now, looking at her grinning as if sensing her thoughts.
“Tell me, my little high elf, who was that interesting drow you traveled with? I’ve heard tale about him, member of some sort of mercenary band. What would a pretty little high elf be doing traveling in the company of a bastard dark elf like him?”
He smiled, as he saw her hug her knees to her chest, trying to mask her surprise. Walking closer he stood above her looking down in a pose of mock curiosity.
“Oh I know all about him, my dear. I am not so far away from the main land that I haven’t heard certain things. No one can keep things from me if I wish to know.” His voice was a whisper, a terrifying, soul cutting whisper. “ I would wager I know quite a lot, like your foolish crusade here. I’ve known you were coming for a very long time now.”
He reached into his robes and pulled out something. He then reached down and grabbed Nandarea bye the neck and pulled her to his face. His whisper became a blade.
“You came for this didn’t you?” Nandarea managed to look to what he was holding, and whatever little shred of hope remained in her was ripped away.
He held in his hand a amulet the size of a fist. It seemed to be made of ice yet the clear crystal stone radiated cold, the gold wire that was worked around it was the color of silver with hints of gold fading in and out of the light.
“Ah yes, I see it in your eyes now, you were looking for this. The Heart of Ice, a powerful relic, why are you searching for it? You know its power? You see it around you, this tower was created with it, and with this a person could cover the world in ice and snow.” He looked into her eyes then, and smiled at the truth that lay there. “Ah, you’ve begun to feel my touch haven’t you? Tell me how does the land of Traven fare under my influence? A winter to never end? Is that why you are here? To stop me?”
He laughed then a horrible maniacal sound that echoed off the cavern walls.
“Your friends are dead, your precious guardian will die very soon, and you my dear . . . you will envy your friends death. Traven and all the lands will fall to me. You have failed silly high elf girl.”
Something inside Nandarea began to draw heat. Anger warmed the ice around her heart. It began to suffuse her body, she looked the gaunt necromancer in the eyes with a fire that turned white hot. She didn’t care anymore, she had failed, but if everything else killed her she would not sit here and wait for death to come.
She caught the necromancer by surprise and grasped his head in desperation with both hands. His hands sought her heart and his fingers began to burn into her chest. It was all Nandarea could do to keep focused, pain like she had never known before spread from her heart throughout her whole body like her blood was flowing with acid. She focused her power into the dark elf’s mind seeking to destroy it at all cost.
There they stood in the middle of a cavern of ice blazing with power as each sought victory over the other. Locked together neither one moved as their power began to shake the tower of ice. Cracks began to appear like a massive spider web along the walls ceiling and floor.
She was failing. Nandarea could feel it, the pain was too great and her mind was starting to slow. It was getting harder for her to concentrate. The mages power was much stronger than her own, and the little advantage she got from surprising him was waning. Nandarea felt herself slipping, she could see the necromancers’ eyes shining, and he knew he was winning.
“Good try my little priestess,” he said through gritted teeth “but I think your goddess has forsaken her little servant” Krazixs turned a sickly grin toward her, and she felt his fingers probing deeper through her chest seeking to rip her heart out of her body.
Something caught Nandarea’s attention, as her life was fading from her body, a flickering of light out of the corner of her eyes. She had enough time to stare fascinated at the site of an ebony blade emerge out of the necromancers chest. Blood seemed to poor from the wound, a sickly crimson river running over the black blade to pool at her feet.
Krazixs stared at the blade protruding from his chest with a look of profound curiosity. Turning he stared in horror to find himself staring up into eyes blue as the ice that surrounded him.
Nandarea raised her eyes enough to look over the shoulder of the necromancer at what she assumed through her pain, must be a phantom. However real he looked Darklan Khaine could not possibly be alive. In her agony, details that seemed odd were clarified, things that for some reason seemed very important to her. One of his arms seemed to hang oddly, blood ran across his face and she noticed that his pale hair was matted with blood. She could see cuts running across his torso and a segment of what looked to be a spearhead jutted from his leg. It was then she noticed he looked different. His armor was gone, pieces hung from bits of leather and chainmail but the majority of his proud ancient armor was gone.
The phantom and the necromancer stared at each other, hate tangible between them.
“So . . .” the necromancer coughed blood, but managed to smile “Our little dark knight is not dead . . . .you soon will be” with a grin he began to murmur in a harsh evil language.
Darklan merely grasped the hilt of his sword tightly and began to chant in a language that seemed to be similar to the one the necromancer was using.
“Going to match your powers against mine, little man? I will show you the meaning of pain” Power blazed from the dying necromancers arms, flowed through his hands and seemed to pulse into Darklan’s body. The dark knight didn’t flinch only chanted louder until his body seemed to blaze with unholy power as it pulsed into the necromancer’s body.
Nandarea stared in sickly horror as she witnessed two dying men feed off each others fading life force. The blaze of power seemed to grow brighter until if felt as if the heat would surly melt the tower around them. She stared as both seemed to get lost in an incandescence brighter than the sun.
Silence then as if the whole word took a breath for what was coming.
The explosion sent Nandarea and Kallions’ body flying to the opposite end of the chamber. Darkness crashed into Nandarea and the void took her into a spiraling unconscious.
* * * *

Oblivion, she rode it’s tide in a lazy drifting rhythm. She couldn’t decide who she was. Obviously she was female only for some reason she could not recall anything beyond that point. She continued to drift blissfully unfeeling to anything, in a dark void of total sense deprivation. It was then, after an eternal time of floating, a microsecond in the cosmos, she felt warm. A strange feeling to someone who has never known feeling, like the tingling of reawaking appendages. She, stretched, the only way to describe it, toward the light, and the gentle light that had seemed to bathe her in a gentle glow, grew increasingly hot. White-hot pain flooded her, seared her as physical and mental awareness crashed into her with the force of an oceanic tidal wave.
Nandarea. The name felt strange, but it was hers. She couldn’t move her body, pain had taken over her appendages and she was unwilling to take them back. Voices, she noticed, voices echoed through her skull. Someone was holding her, she realized, her eyes were closed, and the voices seemed to be getting clearer.
“Holy hell what happened here?” a gruff voice rumbled.
“This place stinks of unholy power . . . what happened?” a strong deep voice this time.
“Quiet everyone they are hurt, Vykore you and Machail look around this place for anyone besides these two, Grob you and Velous stand guard near the door, be on the look out for anyone else alive down there, Gate help me with these two, Kallion looks alright but I think Nan is hurt real bad.” Corsis. Names, faces, voices, Gatelen, Corsis, Vykore, Velous, Grobycen, Machail the dwarf. They all crashed into her, reality intruding even more into her unconscious state.
“Kallion is fine, exhausted and unconscious, but he’s fine.” Gatelen, she thought.
“Good, let him rest awhile, I don’t have enough strength right now to heal everyone, so let me see about getting Nandarea on her feet, or at least awake.”
Nandarea felt herself being held again. She heard chanting and sounds flooded into her head. Gentle sounds that seemed to carry away pain and fear. The sound of wind and leaves, the smell of earth and tree’s caressed her soul, lifting her to the healing light of the sun. Life blossomed in her chest and carried warmth and healing through her body.
Eyes opened she stared into the gentle eyes of the wood elf Corsis.
“Glad to have you back little sister.” The gentle smile was enough to make Nandarea eyes glisten with tears and a smile light her face.
“Good to see you Cor.” She said with a smile.
“What happened here Nan?” Concern touched his voice, and that’s when realization and memory came back to Nandarea in awful wave of agony.
“Darklan! Where is he?” fear edging into her voice now. She moved as if to stand but Corsis’ strong arms kept her from moving
“I don’t know Nan, I am sorry we just got in here right after the big explosion a few moments ago, you shouldn’t move Nan your very weak right now.”
Nandarea saw over Corsis’s shoulder Gatelen, rise and walk over to them. It was then that she noticed that both Corsis and Gatelen looked quite the worse for the ware. The wizards red robes hung in tattered disarray on his slender shoulders and his staff looked burnt and scarred in numerous places. Corsis leather armor looked torn in half a dozen places, while small scrapes and cuts decorated his body in too many places to count.
“Where’s Kallion? Is he ok?” Nandarea felt a stab of shame for just remembering her devoted protector, but she couldn’t help it.
Gatelen smiled down at her, “He’s fine, a little bruised up but in a better state that you my dear. It seems he used his powers to heal you, and then passed out unconscious cause of the strain it put on his body.” He looked concerned for a moment, “ I have to tell you Nan, you must been in really bad shape for you to put so much of a toll on your paladin’s powers. I’ve seen people brought back from the brink of death who took less power to heal. And consider that was just enough to keep you alive, Corsis hear still had to heal you to bring you back fully.” As usual the mage had deduced much with his quick mind. “What happened?”
Nandarea, swallowed dryly, she was not eager to think about what had happened but they deserved an explanation. Looking from Corsis to Gatelen she reminded herself of what they must have sacrificed in coming here for her. She prepared to tell them her tale, when two figures emerged from the shadows beyond the druid and mage.
One figure, impossibly tall to Nandarea, looked as if was cradling a shape in his arms. The other a shorter stockier figure seemed to lumber along carrying what looked to be a giant sword compared to the short shape carrying it. Machail the dwarven paladin, and Vykore the tall barbarian, emerged carrying their grisly burdens.
Nandarea stared in a sick fascination at what she saw them carrying. Machail lumbered along in his heavy dwarven armor, still heavily bloodstained and visibly weary, he carried in his arms a large two-handed sword with an intricately carved silver handle, and a dead black blade etched in crimson-black blood. Vykore carried the more horrible burden. Dressed in what was now torn fur with scraps of leather and chainmail holding it together, his once proud tribal armor, now a tangled and bloodied mirror of the man who wore them. In his arms was a grisly sight. A body, once in a shape that suggested it was once an elf, burned black and blood soaked. Pieces of darkened silver armor that must have once adorned this shape looked to be melted and fused to the body that it was now a part of. The face of the shape was more horrible still, it continued to hold on to a semblance of what it looked like before. Teeth bared in a horrible rictus of determination and pain was frozen forever on what was left of Darklan Khaine’s once proud visage. Eye’s wide and staring forever blankly at the heavens were a mirror to the eyes that beheld them now.
With a cry that seemed to tear soul from body, wrenched free of Nandarea’s throat, the battered cleric took hold of the form being held by the tall barbarian and collapsed to floor cradling the still form in her arms. Sob after sob wracked the gentle elf’s body as grief poured from her like a sickened fountain of ash from the earth. Images flashed through her head, visions of this man’s face seemed to bubble up through her soul to be brought before her eyes in an endless sea of pain.
The way he looked when he knew he was going to die, the look in his eyes that revealed a love for his friends that she could not fathom. How proudly she had seen him the day she had first laid eyes on him. Leading an entire band of mercenaries against impossible odds only to come out victorious. Always against the odds, Darklan’s life was an uncountable tale of himself against impossible odds. He always came out on top, but not this time she thought. A greater sacrifice she had never before witnessed. He knew himself to be dead but still managed to overcome death so he could once again sacrifice himself for her a second time. She remembered the way his hodge-podge band of friends looked on him, as he was the embodiment of what nobility should be. Indeed she thought, he was a king, a king and emperor of all those who were outcast, dredges, people who were no longer believed in or thought of as equals among their races. He was their companion, a man who knew more of being an outcast, who knew more of being despised than all those gathered with him. Legends would be sung about this band of heroes, and even more so about him.
The thoughts of him in his glory seemed to assuage the grief that Nandarea felt. But the pain was still to great, she needed to cleanse it. So ever so gently Nandarea laid Darklan’s body down and began to pray.
She was aware of the others around her, trying to stop her, pleading for her to rest, but they were past her and she was in her full power. She prayed to her goddess, and was answered.
She seemed to be standing in a sphere of light, a place of power and healing. Before was Darklan’s body, withered in pain and contorted in death. A being of light approached her then. Nandarea felt her goddess approached and fell on her knees in awe. She knelt there awaiting her goddess to speak.
“Rise, child . . .” a voice that was gentle but held as much power as the wind, flowed over Nandarea “I have answered your summons, my most devoted servant what would you ask?”
Nandarea raised her eyes to the corpse that lay in front of her. Picking up the body as if it weighed nothing, Nandarea held it out for her goddess to see.
“My goddess, this man has sacrificed, he has made a sacrifice greater than any I have ever bared witness. I plead for you to find mercy on him.” Nandarea bowed her head holding the corpse up.
“ My dear daughter, this man is in the realm of death now, possibly beyond my help. I sense he is a child of my hateful brother Innoruuk. My touch would not aid him my child . . .”
“Please.” Nandarea said in a pleading voice, “Search his soul, his mind, there is love in him, I know it, I have seen it!” in a much smaller voice Nandarea whispered, “He is the most noble man I have ever known . . .”
“Remarkable daughter, that one such as yourself would care for this elf born of hatred, let me see this man.”
Nandarea felt the corpse lift from her hands and then cradled in the arms of the god.
“I must tell you this before I do anything my faithful daughter. You are right there is much love in him, and much hate. I feel it in his soul. It seems he is a son of mine as well as one of my brother. He has much nobility in him, his is destiny that could unite nations. But he also has much contention in him as well. Daughter do you have any love for this man?”
Nandarea struggled within herself. Did she feel love? It was impossible. Love was never something she saw for herself. Her duty was always paramount to her, but did she love this man?
“My goddess, my companions, the ones I have traveled with, search their souls they all have a great love for him.”
“For shame my servant, is your hearts truth really so hard for you to see? Answer me my daughter, do you love elf of the dark, as you would one of your own?”
In a voice so small it barely reached her own ears, Nandarea answered
“Yes.”
“So it shall be then my daughter!” Power seemed to pound in Nandarea’s skull. “Take heed though, my touch will change him, I cannot say how, but his soul will not be the same my child! Behold the power of your goddess!!”
For the second time that day, darkness and light crashed into Nandarea’s head, and she drifted out of consciousness.

[J.R.V.A.]

Great, I really really like this. More please

[TanteMegs]

Very good. I love these kinds of stories, I agree with J.R.V.A. with the more please.

Megs