Cory_McCoy

Chapter (??)

Contradicting Accounts

“You've committed atrocities upon my peaceful people, Almuric.” The Grand Chief KenKota snarled. “You've stolen from us and raped our women, children, and lands.”

“Five years to this day.” Almuric whispered, bending down inches from KenKota's tanned, mud smeared face. “I offered you this island. You refused me, what would you have me do?”

“Assume your false title, you commanded me.” KenKota replied, backing away. “Almuric the Just. Candova, he who has brought peace to the seven islands. I ask you now, is this what you call peace? You've lust for power has destroyed the homes of thousands of my tribe. Are these crystals worth the lives you litter upon the way side?”

“Silence!” Condova bellowed, his massive frame was intimidating and menacing, even while his armor sparkled and so many saw him as their savior-king. “No one king rules the new lands, not I nor you. You have the right to dissent and I have graciously agreed to meet you in battle. Would that I did not have to, but you will not bend to reason.”

“Name the stakes, my king.” Sneered KenKota, sure of his victory over the massive red-headed warrior from the rolling plains of the Old World.

“Everything.” Candova growled, his deep voice rumbling through the crowd as he bellowed.

“So be it.” KenKota replied, he had not expected this. Why would the High King of all the new lands risk everything in a battle to the death over the smallest of his tributaries?

“For the honor of Agmoria and the Elder races who preside over it.” Candova said, snatching his great mace from his squire. The boy was larger than a massive man himself, although he was considerably less bearded.

With that Candova leapt forward, swiftly closing the distance. KenKota let out a primal shriek, his incredible red-veined crystal burned brightly. Nightmarish screams pierced the air as he called the Rekota Falcons from their nests. The massive birds of prey feverishly flapped their wings, all hurtling toward the High King.

Without warning, Almuric stopped and slammed his mace headfirst into the ground, thirty massive obsidian birds ripped from the distant cliffs. They flew swiftly, their larger wings quickly gaining on the living birds. With a sickening, primal screech from KenKota's birds and violent rumbling, echoing from Candova's golems, the birds slammed upon each other mid air.

Blood sprayed through the air as the thirty golems began to overpower the fifty something great-birds. KenKota saw his advantage slipping and drew his bow. As he trained his poisoned arrows upon the High-King's throat, he summoned forth twenty sand adders, their long powerful scales ripping up through the sand.

Candova was startled, caught off guard by an adversary more powerful than he had anticipated. As the adders snapped forth at his feet, he swung his mighty club, smashing skull after skull before clenching his gauntleted hand into a tight fist. With an innocuous hand gesture, a stone hydra burst forth sending the snakes flying away from him.

“I underestimated you.” Almuric admitted as the hydra fought the remaining snakes, neither side gaining an advantage as the deadly fangs broke through the rock throats of his hydra. “You've asked me many times to think of your people.”

“Yet you never did, we were never equal to the 'civilized' peoples.” He cried, flinging his small wand around, still battling the hydra. In the distance a thundering of hoofs charged through the forest. They were not yet close enough to take advantage of.

“I will not ask you again Chief KenKota.” Almuric bellowed, running forward smashing the faces of the snakes, even as his hydra struggled to killed the last few. “Join the council and give your people a voice... Or die!”

“I would choose an eternity of nothingness over permitting you leave to violate our lands!” He replied as his herd of gargantuan boars emerged, each taller than an elephant, stormed forth ripping down the trees that led to the clearing they fought in. Hundreds of war-boars thundered forth, ready to rip Candova into pieces at KenKota's command.

“So be it.” Candova replied, his heart heavy with sorrow. He drew himself up to his full height, without the slightest glance toward the boars thundering toward him, shaking the earth.

“You're a fool Almuric.” The confident chief told him as his pigs came close, ready to kill the dauntless king.

“Perhaps I was.” Candova replied, the sense of sadness and honesty echoing through his soft reply. Only a handful even heard him. “Perhaps I always will be.”

Candova looked on as the boars thundered toward him, ready to meet his fate. He was ready, but knew his time had not yet come. His eyes met KenKota's. In an instant Chief KenKota had realized his mistake, but was helpless against the High King.

The earth around them erupted, the pigs fell hundreds of feet down, along with many thousand bystanders. Only KenKota and Candova were left standing within a hundred foot circle. There was now a gaping hole around them, where the innocent had stood watching their battle. The displaced earth rose thousands of feet into the air forming the face of a great demonic face. It paused for a brief moment before crashing down violently upon KenKota, destroying any foolish hope his people had ever known.

“I will never forgive myself, old friend” Almuric said to himself as he formed an enormous eagle to carry him away from the hell and devestation he had created. He had just killed the closest thing to an equal he would ever know.

Rage. Death. Vengeance.

Everyone must die, the boy's mind screamed as he clawed his way back to the surface. He clawed at the sand and palm tree roots with the ferocity of a mad-man. After hours, which seemed like years, the boy pulled himself onto solid ground.

So very tired. He faded, his mind melting as his body gave way. The hours bled into eternity before the boy finally awoke. His dark skin aflame with the heat of the sun. This had once been a clearing, but now there was nothing but a mesa bordered by darkness. Only one soul had survived the destruction wrought by the two most ambitious sorcerers on the planet.

He crawled forward, his instincts taking him to the center of this new plateau. He kept grabbing, scratching, desperately pulling forward. He had never known such pain or thirst. Finally, he reached the center, his long fingernails scratching some new, unfamiliar surface. His mind gave way, the boy was lost to the world. He was dead, but could not pass son. He lingered for months on end, unable to move, speak, or even think.

After what seemed like decades, the screech of a distant gull made its way from the deltas of a wide river. It flew high over the plateau, unsure of what it was seeing. Somehow, it knew to dip low toward the dying figure and drop it's huge beak full of water.

And so it did. As did the the rest of its distant relatives. Eventually the water pooled around the boy, and the soft splashes of frolicking birds awoke him.

He struggled to open his eyes, panicking as he hallucinated. Surely there wasn't a flying squirrel trying to force him to drink water from a broken coconut. Yet, that is exactly what it was. And so this boy regained his strength in what would someday become the Island of Exile. Except, in his time there were no benevolent friends, only heat and deadly pests snapping at criminal's heals.

After many weeks, the boy had learned to manipulate his animal friends. He had found a dark blood-red, crystal the size of his fist. He knew that he could use this rock to manipulate the daft creatures to obey him. In time he learned to command any animal he encountered and eventually left the island on the crest of a death-hawk.

Twenty years passed and no one wondered what had happened to this miscreant. Twenty years he wandered the wilderness, conquering beast after beast. Eventually he could command an Ent to fight a mammoth and neither would question his dominance. He owned these inferior creatures. Occasionally he would encounter his own kind. He couldn’t manipulate them, so he made the beasts kill them.

He was an exceedingly clever boy. He followed the animals and found the game trails. He knew how to command even hydras, the beasts from hell. In his mind, the boy knew he could control any dumb beast.

One day, the boy swore, he would have a dragon. One with power and rage flowing from the eyes, as the dark paint of his people's memory bled from his.

Cory_McCoy

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