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Chapter One
Birth
In the medical tower, everyone was busy with their task of assisting Queen Armantine during her delivery while patiently waiting for the work to be done. The wise doctors practiced their ancestral massage techniques on the queen while the herbalists burned the medicinal herbs. Aktor Roi-Des-Hommes was
impatiently awaiting the arrival of his future princess or his future prince, he alone would have the right to
touch his child first, to help in the passage of this
new life. Despite Armantine's huge belly, the delivery
like the pregnancy was going well. Kneeling position
on the edge of the bed and torso resting on a high
cushion, pressure on the outer corner of the toes to
reduce pain, light pressure in the vertebrae and the
pelvis to help the baby's descent, everyone worked in harmony
and serenity in order to provide a relaxing environment for the newcomer. After more
than three hours of work finally, a small head
was discovered. Aktor got ready to welcome
this little being, with a push from Armantine
the whole baby came out and Aktor grabbed it carefuly, a boy! The kingdom of men had a
prince. Finally, Armantine could lie on her back and hold her baby in her arms. Lying down painfully, a twinge in
the stomach the queen felt a new contraction.
Screaming in intense pain the queen felt like she
was giving birth again, a piercing scream coming
from the depths of her lungs and another baby came
out of the new mother with extreme speed, Markham
the king's right arm grabbed the second comer before
it hit the ground. Cries! Others cries for another baby! How
could it be! Never had it happened in Dragoenia's memory that two babies were born at the same time, was it due to the full moon? The room was silent, everyone was speechless, no sound except the cries of two newborn babies. Aktor and Markham went to put the two babies in their mother's arms, their eyes
questioning each other. Looking so tenderly at her two children drinking her milk, Armantine came with tears in her eyes: "You who is in the hollow of my right breast I name you Karkator, defender of the oppressed. You who is in the hollow of my left breast I will name you Arkator, artist of souls. Together you will
be all and nothing, fire and water, earth and metal, together you will be the winds of change of Dragoaena. will be together. I will love you eternally my children be all that you must be." With these words, the beloved Armantine
went out, like all the candles. Shrill little cries broke the silence. A deep growl made the room vibrate, and a howl worthy of the biggest of wolves tore the night, cursing the moon, this so beautiful full moon. Dragoeana was crying again.
Festivities
Marion was exhausted, she had all prepared for the Nomasku and she was proud of it, she was in charge of preparing the party
to formalize the name of the new baby in this new
world, a chance that the whole kingdomwas there to
help her. The center piece of thecastle was incredibly
beautiful, woven by the greatest weavers in the region.
The other two kingdoms were going to be on their most
beautiful attractions, they had to be impressed. Above
all, it was necessary to impress him. Finally after these last three years of
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sending words to each other by hawk, they were going to see each other again! Warfaden Prince of Rocks! Warfaden, prince of her heart. Why even all this time to have seen him, when she thought of him she felt appeased and that even after three, he will not have changed but she has grown up! Now she's going to be taller than him! Of course, Marion made fun of the
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dwarf in her letters and reminded him of the time that Warfaden laughed at her because he was taller. After three years, now they
were fifteen and that was a difference in the growth of
the two races. Dwarfs grow fast but their stops growing
early but become wider. The little redhead was not short
as before but still had that temper. Yes maybe he's going
to be shorter than her, but she was blushing thinking how
he's going to be bigger than her, she couldn't bear to see
him, Only one more night! Marion finished placing the chairs and
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waited impatiently,it was getting late it had been several moments since she had heard of the birth of her sister Armantine, the queen of the castle, finally she could relax and go for a walk on the pavement of the market. Although the delivery seemed to be going well, she still had this premonition, something was
going to happen and this time it was going to
be serious. Marion's palms became so hot that
Marion burned herself. At the same time the
cries of a baby were heard by the tower, finally!
She was an aunt! She could hear the sages and
the king shouting in joy with his big deep voice.
The joy was immense in her, her body was
boiling with happiness for her sister. She looked around her
coming out of her trance and realized that it was already night and that the full moon was high in the sky to mark this rare event among time and stars. People were like her, all looked at the tower and rejoiced at the arrival of the future king or queen and seemed confused by the night, as if time had
had skipped a beat, but all concentrated on the cries of the baby when suddenly a sound that no one could have heard, the cries of another baby! No one had hallucinated, all before of course heard the same sound, all looked at each other in disbelief without understanding Marion could not understand
what was happening, in human memory two children had never been born at the same time, was it due to the full moon? People are going to ask questions, they're going to want answers to something that no one can explain. Just the people, her friends, those who had helped her prepare, all turned to her
with questioning looks. Marion didn't know
what to do in front of this crowd of
questioning eyes that advanced towards her
to ask her questions. The heat, this heat,
begins to reappear, this ball in her belly which
grows. "I have to go see what's going on up
there, you'll get your answers another time."
Marion had tears in her eyes and felt all this heat dissipate at the same time that a growl worthy of the biggest wolf tore through the night with the full moon as a spectator. Dragoenia was still crying.
Jailbird
"Ah! It's tonight! Finally tonight!"
"What are you talking about again?"
"These dungeons are your slaughterhouse!
And it's tonight that
I'm coming out of it."
"No one comes out of these dungeons, not even the guard, he sleeps, look!"
"Yeah! leave us alone!"
"No one who among us is here for peace."
"Let Us Sleep"
"Better to laugh than to die."
"Ah! Yeah! Do you think you've found your way out?"
"I did not find it, it is this little rat here who told me ."
The man finally stopped talking, to everyone's relief. Falling back into the torment of his head and waiting for
several moments, the words whirling in his head, this
mad urge to shout them, but managed to keep his
composure it wasn't the time yet. Finally, small cries
were heard in the night. "Ah! Finally my friends! It's
time to say goodbye! It was a real pleasure to meet
you!" Suddenly another small cry pierced the thick
walls of the dungeon. “Ah! How wonderful! Best plot of all time at a propitious moment in my own story! A sneer appeared on his lips and bit the outer corner of his left thumb, letting droplets of blood drip like the tears of Dragoenia.
Celltime
How many days, how many nights, how many springs? How many times these questions came back into her head. The memories, her only memories were the same porridge twice a day served by these monsters, why she said they were monsters, she didn't even remember the faces from before, it was probably due to the first time she had seen them even that day was no
longer etched in her memory, but every day
they reminded her why she thought so. Every
day, every day, they came into her room tied
her to the wall without saying a word in
silence and always just whipped her in a
different place each time, stopping the moment
the blood started to make its marks on her skin, never getting to the point of bleeding. Bleed. Cowering in a corner she looked at
Sister
the floor which was stained with dried black blood, today she felt it was her first day that she was going to bleed for real, not only every time she woke up ounce upon a time. Which meant that they would come to collect her blood today, like they said so, finally a day without blows, hopefully the last one. Her
eyes were heavy, she would fall asleep to be woken up by the sound of chains, today she had to fight sleep, she knew it was today, her dreams had told her. The moon had told her, Dragoenia had told her.
Why weren't the candles in the castle lit? It was dark outside, it was night but yet Marion noticed that the royal table was being prepared, supper was not ready yet but the night had already begun on this spring day. The redhead was running at full speed through the kitchen to access the medical
tower. "Marion what's going on?" Someone was trying to stop her. "This is not the time, my sister... My sister..." The tears were blurring her sight, but anyway she could
walk and run in thec astle with her eyes closed,
finally she arrived at the foot of the stairs.
Marion was beginning to hear the frantic
footsteps and the mingling of voices. Going up
quietly step by step out of breath, she was
jostled out of her world. Raising her head, she
saw Markham with a look of despair: "Marion, here you are at
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last. Come upstairs with me, we have to talk." "My sister, my sister, the child, the children, Aktor?" She managed to stammer. Only a sad look from Markham landed in the redhead's moist eyes, taking her in his
arms. Dragoenia joined her.
Jailbird
In the dungeons of Castle Slagor, the prisoners were panicked. Ka'arass, fallen son of Lormar Chief of the
Guard, was roaming freely through the
corridors of the prison leaving long trails
of blood dripping from his fingertips.
Stopping in front of a cell he began to make a
circle on the ground with his fingers. In the
bloody circle, the former prisoner drew words
in Dragonian language, looking at the man behind the bars he
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chanted: "Ax Var Zadam!" In the cell the man grabbed his right hand and cried out in pain, under his eyes filled with fear his hand swelled to the point of becoming as big as his head and exploded. The torturer looked at the poor writhing in color and settled in the middle of the pentagram, raised his arm and closed his fist with force. Blood began to flow from the eyes and
ears of the martyr, the man seemed paralyzed, not moving and without shouting a word as if he felt nothing.
With a smirk, Ka'arass savored the harm he
was inflicting on his victim, he smirked at his
prey and closed his fist, his brain lined the
walls of the cell, his headless body remained
upright for several moments like a statue and
Ka'arass struck his hands very hard as if he
were swatting a fly and the body of the deceased had the same reaction as his other limbs, only a pool of blood covered the four corners of the alcove. Ka'arass wiped a bead of blood from his cheek. Disgusted he thought aloud: "I'm going to have to work on my protection, blood is disgusting!" He says laughing. Turning on his heels, he continued on his way to the next dungeon.
Campaign
The caravan was making good progress. For four days now,
peasants, farmers and sick people had left the region of Azanam. A once prosperous land filled with cornfields was now as devastated as the great plains of the north. The hectares of wheat now gave way to a nightmarish landscape. Where there were crops the land was arid, nothing grew. The beautiful ponds
had dried up or the water had changed color, the azure bodies of water had given way to the greenish marsh, some had even turned red as if all the life of its marvelous oases had drained of their blood. Where the birds were going to drink, now they were going there to die. The other findings that the pilgrims
noticed were the animals. In recent years wolves had doubled in
size, squirrels flew from tree to tree. Since the last generation, dogs were born with deformities, it was not uncommon to see them with two or even more tails. The group of peasants were marching on the main road leading south. When they arrived at the intersection that branched off to the other
two realms, they heard the chirping of a bird that seemed to be in pain. Slowly Marik came forward quietly
from the little noise. "Come see everyone!" he
exclaimed. The group made a circle around the
little bird who was suffering terribly. "He looks
very bad, if we leave him here the wolves will
come and eat him. What should we do?"
exclaimed the little boy. "He has a broken wing,
I could splint it." Camille, the old sage of the group, had
crouched down to watch the baby bird. "As Marik said so well, if we leave it here the wolves will come and we still have three days to reach the castle, the wolves will follow our tracks and hunt down the slowest. If we take the baby bird in the lead group with the carriers, the wolves will not get its scent." "I
believe that we must put an end to his suffering and his cries are hurting my ears! Perhaps he has been
affected by the disease and risks passing it on
to us, we cannot take this risk! How many have
died? At this rate, only forty of us will be
arriving at the castle after forty days and forty
nights!" Barked Rutho. "As always you say things
insane, you don't can't even count and you make the
group delay Rutho! Surely some of us are infected and we don't know it!
"As always you say insane things, you don't even know how to
count and you surely delay the group and Surely some of us are infected and we don't know it! He deserves the same chance as us and as usual we will do what is necessary in due time and place!" ordered? the leader of the group. But Rutho didn't have the same view of the leader. Taking a large rock, he
advanced towards the bird to exterminate it. A sharp cry from Marik's mouth pierced the silence. Everyone
covered their ears and fell to their knees.
Rutho persevered and continued to advance
despite the shrill noise, the group looked
dumbfounded, the youngster who shouted in
the direction of the madman. Suddenly veins
appeared in the blow and on the temples of the
young boy, finally silence was for his audience, but Marik still
had his mouth wide open and continued to shout without any sound coming out but blue circles coming out. Everyone took their hands off their ears without understanding anything. Rutho was in place, motionless. Finally Rutho dropped the rock on his head and put his hands over his ears. Marik
stopped screaming his neck muscles relaxed
and the two passed out face down. The entire
group was frozen in a trance, no one knew
what to do. Finally, a burly old man came
forward helping Camille to her feet. "Camille
takes good care of the baby bird." He whispered
quietly. "Of course, I will take care of it as if
it were my child, Hogam. What will happen with Rutho and
especially Marik, he could have killed us all. How could he make such a piercing cry?" Camille was worried about all this. "What I do know is that he did us no harm. Rutho deserves what happened to him and that he still breathes. He won't be happy when he wakes up." Without them realizing it? the
leader of the group had enter the conversation. "As always Rutho is going to delay us a day and more! Take our energy and our resources! We have better things to do!"-"So do you think we should leave him here? To banish him from the group? He just lost his whole family and you want to send him alone, big brother? The group
is getting smaller and smaller, you really think. My brother, he
lost his father. his mother and you want to send him alone in the dangers of the forest? And Marik him? You all saw what he did!" Folan the group leader's brother fumed. "My decisions are always in favor of the group, so far they have allowed us to survive. This is not a coincidence, it's a sign! The baby bird is
probably an eagle and look at what Marik did, he screamed like
an eagle! We have to stick together to get to the
castle and then we'll talk about it. But Rutho
has to leave, he's only a nuisance to the group."
Shouted the big bearded chief. "Ah! You always
cut me off big brother! No! I said to banish the
three we don't need all this trouble!" A slap to
the back of the head cut him off, but for once
he continued, "I just want you to make the right decision." he
said looking at the floor. "For the moment let's make the decision to sequester Rutho and see how he will react and we have to take care of Marik to see if he is fine. Bring stretchers and ropes to tie Rutho. And someone prepare a feast! We have to regain our
strength after all this. " For
once, Dragoenia was at ease.
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