The Tale of the Swords of the
Ancients And Other Blades of Power
A Mythology
By
Kit Rae
Evil was born to Ammon in the shape of the Dark One, said to
be one of the original Ancients in ages of old, and he wielded the first Sword
of the Ancients, Kilgorin, the sword of
darkness, from which he drew his power. He made his abode in Lokonia, the
underworld, where he created the Barumen, foul, horned creatures with three
pupiled eyes that were bred of men, wolf, and ape; and he gathered them in
numbers to create the Black Legion, an army that spread like a pestilence
throughout the land. The banner of this black army was the three pupiled eye, a
symbol of his power over the three great kingdoms of the realm of Ammon:
Lumenia, Lokonia, and Deylund. The Dark One designed to destroy all creatures
brought forth by the Anath and to seed the world with a brood of his own
making. Thence he sent his Black Legion forth from the bowels of Ammon to wage
war against the kingdoms of man, Lumenia and Deylund. Those lands were rich
with the elements of the forests and plains, and he desired for his Barumen to
dwell in them.
To arm his soldiers the Dark One commanded that the Black
Elves, dwellers of the mines in Lokonia, create the Black
Legion Blades. The Black Elves, expert blacksmiths in the ores mined
from the depths of Ammon, created a secret alloy that could not be chipped or
broken. With that alloy they forged many evil blades for the Black Legion. Each
was formed in a different shape from the other, but all were wrought with
hooked blade and clawed hilt, embedded with the talons and claws of beasts
slain by the Barumen. The mere sight of these evil blades struck fear in the
hearts of mortals, causing many to retreat in battle rather than face their
terrible edge.
The fiercest of the Black Legion were the Barumen Axemen of
Lokonia. These were the main vanguard of The Dark One's army, made up of the
largest and most ferocious of Barumen soldiers. They were heavily armored in
plate steel and leather and each wielded two great Battle
Axes, used with deadly skill. The Battle Axe
was one of the few weapons forged by the Dark Elves in mass, each one being
shaped nearly the same. Every Axeman carried two identical battle axes, with
hooked and curved blades, leather grips and skull crushing pommels. The axe
could be thrown with deadly precision, and its twin, armor-piercing points were
devastating. The blades were also used to chop and hack like a traditional axe,
and the curved hooks could be used to pull an enemy in close to the great
fanged jaws of the Barumen; and one bite from those fangs was deadly.
The Barumen were charged by the Dark One to build many
secret fortresses throughout the Great Realms. The greater host of the Black
Legion were kept in Lokonia until they were sent forth from its bowels to
decimate the Great Realms at the command of their master. Through many
campaigns they marched across the land, conquering the kingdoms of men and
elves one by one. The Barumen Axemen were frequently used on the front lines of
battle, for they were the most relentless and bloodthirsty killers of the Black
Legion and their appearance struck fear in the hearts of mortal men and elves.
In the ten thousand and twenty-second year of the Fifth Age
Queen Vaelen was the wise and beautiful ruler of Lumenia, Middle Kingdom of the
realm of Ammon. A Mithrodin cleric and warrior, she had wed Eadred, the king of
Lumenia, only to find herself put to lead the kingdom after his death a few
years later by the treachery of the Dark One. She possessed Elexorien by her side on the throne, one of the Ten
Swords of the Ancients. Elexorien, or Ōsword of warÕ in the AncientÕs tongue,
was forged with the talisman symbol of Akeron on its cross guard, the horned
spider, with the shape of its pincer claws holding a symbolic drop of poison
venom for any that it may slay. Its blade was graved with Anglecal runes, the
language of Men and Elves, that told of its powers and that it had been forged
by the great Elven sword smith, Mahgnim.
Seeing that her once peaceful land was now being decimated,
the Queen used the power of Elexorien to unite the Great Lords of the kingdoms
of Deylund and Lumenia, a feat theretofore never seen in Ammon. Though young
and inexperienced in such matters, with Elexorien at her side the Queen
commanded her people like a practiced elder. With this host she devised to wage
war against the Black Legion and sent many scouts into the Tellorien Mountains,
high peaks that encircled eastern Lumenia, to find the secret gates leading
into the depths of Lokonia wherein the Barumen held their abode. After many
months, several of the gates were made known to VaelenÕs spies due to the
carelessness of foot soldiers of the Black Legion. Therein, beyond the gates
guarded by the Black Elves, lay long stretches of caverns and great underground
rivers and lakes. VaelenÕs spies had secretly mapped these places, for those
spies were themselves of Elvish decent, Dark Elves that had long ago given up
the shadows and moved to the surface of Ammon to live in daylight. They went
without notice among the Dark OneÕs servants. Queen Vaelen, after much planning,
sent her forces into those dark hellish caverns to seek and destroy the Barumen
horde and their master.
The forces of evil, led by the Dark One and aided by his
mysterious sorcerer Navros, were strong and the war lasted many a year; and
there were many souls lost to the Dark OneÕs minions. Whence four years had
passed, the forces of good had grown weary and many had succumbed to the Dark
OneÕs influence, having been corrupted and turned evil. Queen Vaelen, by
chance, learned from a captured traitor the location of the Dark OneÕs
underground lair in a great cavern beneath the highest peak of the Tellorien
Mountains. She thence presented the sword Elexorien to Luthol, the Prince of
Deylund, and commanded him take it and lay siege to that place; for it was
secret knowledge of the Mithrodin that only ElexorienÕs blade could extinguish
the Dark OneÕs fire and ruin his body. The Dark One was Evruc, one of the
Ancients, and he could only be undone by the power of his own kind. Whence the
Dark Elf Mahgnim had finished forging Elexorien for the Ancients Ones, they had
thence instilled it with such power, and the knowledge of it was only granted
to the Mithrodin, protectors of the Ten Swords.
The PrinceÕs forces succeeded in overpowering the Black
Legion, and indeed all but destroyed it; and upon finding the hidden chamber of
the Dark One in the bowels of Lokonia those forces were waylaid and overcome by
his power, for he wielded the Sword of Darkness, and it could enforce his black
will upon the weak minded. Its clawed hilt was carved of serpents, a three
pupiled eye at its center, and the pommel was wrought in the likeness of a horrid
face, said to be that of the Dark One himself. Through many years of use by the
Dark One Kilgorin was now possessed of a great evil, and it now willed the
wielder to evil more so than he whom wielded it. With it the Dark One clouded
the minds of LutholÕs forces and turned them back from his door. Vaelen was
strong and resisted his control, and Luthol was protected by his influence from
the power of Elexorien, thus they alone attacked the Dark One. Though the
Prince fought fiercely and did a terrible wound to Dark One with Elexorien,
KilgorinÕs evil blade felled him. Queen Vaelen, upon seeing the wounded prince
letting Elexorien slip from his hand, took up the enchanted sword herself and
smote the Dark One through the heart, thus destroying his immortal soul by the
magic of itÕs bright blade; and Evruc of the Ancients, the Dark One, and greatest
evil to ever befall Ammon, was gone forever.
The cost of this act to Vaelen was great, as unbeknownst to
her, the sorcerer Navros had set a spell upon the Dark OneÕs sword; that any
who separated it from its wielder would therewith be cursed and imprisoned in
the Neverworld, a realm which the Dark One himself had once been imprisoned.
This was a place half in and half out of the world, where one can be seen as if
in a mist but never to be heard or touched. Vaelen thereafter waited in eternal
limbo for a champion to one day break the spell and free her again to the light
of Lumenia.
The
Tale of the Swords of the Ancients and Other Blades of Power and its previous versions, The
Swords of the Ancients and its abridged excerpts, and other forms, are ©1997 and ©2005 by Kit
Rae. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted in any other form, or by any means,
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