Nick_Alderson

Ever since Beam’s family was killed, and he was sold into slavery, he’d been affected by a certain sensation in his chest. A dark gnawing. As if there was someone else inside his body, cackling at his struggles. Even as he wields his pickaxe deep within the slave mines, he feels the grip of another hand, trying to guide his own. Something dark, something ominous and powerful, wanted everything that he had left. He could feel its want. In the place of despair, he felt rage, and he resisted it.

Years later, it still remains. He trains to try and silence it. Every day, for hours on end. In the pouring rain, and in the freezing snow. Naturally, after so many years, someone – or something, finds him in such a state. With the lightning flashing, he is discovered by a creature of vaguely human shape, but with a left arm so purple it looked like it should have been rotten to dust long ago. “If you’re going to do it, do it properly,” the monster sneers, slapping the stick out of Beam’s hand, and putting a sword in its place. “Swing it,” the creature commands.

Only when he begins to train with the creature does Beam begin to notice changes. The voice is louder now – angrier. But there’s also something else along with it. A yearning to go with the gnawing. It’s a warm feeling, as if it was a woman’s hand on his shoulder. It stays with him, and only continues to grow in intensity. Two voices speak their mind, and they grow louder. With them, Beam’s desire to grow stronger grows– and finally, true progress begins to come his way, along with a strength that few can believe.

Months pass, and once more, Beam’s world changes. The villagers that had once avoided him begin to show interest in the boy. There’s something mysterious about him, and something that seems to be almost incredible. That fact is sealed for them, when one day he turns up with the corpse of an impossibly strong Hobgoblin. He almost seems too big for the village.

Tragedy occurs, and once more, Beam’s name is taken. The hands of the powerful look his way. They see strength, and they include it in their games. Under the guise of immense secrecy, his past is hidden away, and he is given a new name, that of Oliver Patrick, and he is given a new place amongst minor nobility.

Join Beam - and later Oliver Patrick – as he fights against his fate, and claws his way up out of the mud that he was born into, and begins his war against the powerful men of the Stormfront.

A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

It wasn't that he feared they might lose. There was no chance of any army headed by Gorm losing, that much Jok was sure of. It was the losses that he feared. What came after the battle, when they faced down more enemies, when their injured men grew weary and rotten? He would have much preferred to save their strength.


Yet Gorm and Kursak were both as hungry as starved dogs.


"This truly is a land of the unblessed," Gorm said, squinting at the sky. "I cannot feel the Goddess' love, as I normally would. The evils of this land seem to block out her divinity."


At such lamentations, the mighty Yarmdon leader comforted himself with a grin, as he set his battleaxe against his shoulder.


Jok had certainly felt the air about this land of their enemy. Indeed, it seemed thick with something that was far from holy, far from the Gods that they worshipped. It was growing even thicker now, now that Jok cared to look for it, at Gorm's prompting. Like an invisible oil, weighing them down.


The Darkest of Nights - Part 10