Nhildreer

1 Nhildreer

There weren’t always dragons in the valley. In fact yesterday there hadn’t been. Nhildreer, son of the creator, Nhildrou, sneered at the beasts below him, milling about with their newly created limbs. Fights were already breaking out, pecking orders established, and… personalities developed. These new creations were smart, even with being the ugly things they were, with even uglier hearts. There were rumors that his father was even going to create some with the power over fire. There was, he realized, something familiar about them he could not place, but instinctively hated.

“Careful…” Nhildreer whispered into his beard. “Play with fire, and you will be burnt.” He smirked from his pedestal within the realm of the in-between, as he felt the power in the sentence he had just spoken into being.

Nhildreer looked out at the remainder of the empty void, the sky and ground mixing together in deadly, delicate patterns. His smirk slowly faded from his face. Around him, an absolute silence permeated everything.

It was so quiet. He brought a hand to his temple as a flashback took over his godly consciousness;

A flash of black, and his weapon connected with the being in front of him, cutting one of its three heads from its body. He reached his hand up as the creature screamed in tortured pain, and grabbed the middle neck with the bare of his palm. Using all the strength within him he crushed its windpipe. The third head came down with serrated teeth, latching onto his shoulder and shaking, as to tear the muscle from his body. A below escaped his lips, and he dropped his obsidian blade…

Much later, two longswords in each hand, he strode forward with the others. One god of the old gods. That was all that remained. An older being from the looks of it. It was hard to tell, as the gods before them had no humanistic traits. They were gods of beasts, and resembled the nightmarish landscape that existed before The Valish. The assembled gods, twenty in total, created by Ayl; the Keeper of Time, swarmed the remaining Old One.

It was a much harsher fight than any of them expected. The Old One clearly had been the ruler, the father of the rest. Before Nhildreer’s blade made the final cut, it had taken down four of the other newly formed gods. Breathing heavily, Nhildreer looked around at his fellow gods including their father, Nhildrou, who was standing beside them, also worn down from the course of the battle. “Finally,” Nhildrou said, his gravelly voice echoing through the barren landscape, “Creation is mine.”

As quickly as it had come, the flashback faded back into memory. He could not help but retrace the steps of succession that had followed. Each of the remaining gods, known as The Valish, helped their father Nhildrou in the creation of the new world. Something that he had helped with and relished doing, was the creation of humanity. A race that they had made similar to themselves, but with great limitations.

Looking down to his right, he observed a village, its inhabitants milling about in their mundane fashions. A slight frown crossed his sculpted face as he noticed the peoples of another village raiding the one he was currently observing. They would have enough to fight against in this new world fraught with danger, let alone quarreling amongst themselves. However, The Valish had decided to let nature take its course. Let their creations figure it out, they had said. Whether they would survive or not was on themselves.

A flash of light appeared to Nhildreer’s left, and he glanced in that direction. “Who disturbs my peace?” He asked menacingly. He was not in the mood for distractions at the moment. Instantly, he recognized The Twins, their thin, haunting bodies melding with darkness from the surroundings. The one on the right stepped forward slightly. It was Govrall, the speaker of the two. Nhildreer looked back towards the forming landscape below, determined to maintain his inner peace.

“We have decided,” whispered Govrall, “that you will impose too great an obstacle for what we have planned.” Nhildreer frowned, not sure at what they were talking about. He started to glance up, but it had been too late. The two of them were now inches away, their flicking forms brushing against his.

“What-” Nhildreer started to say, but was cut off once the other twin, Govrim, melded into his body. Nhildreer immediately fought with all the mental capability he had, his body frozen to his pedestal. Govrall was now chanting above him, and as he did so, a fracture ruptured inside of Nhildeer’s mind. He struggled more frantically, gaining an edge over Govrim’s mind. He started to crush Govrim with his mental fortitude, and felt the other god cry out in a voiceless expulsion of energy.

He watched through a blurring sight as Govrall flinched, obviously wounded as well. But it was too late. He felt his mind shatter, as though struck with a great and powerful weapon. Slowly, he lost feeling in his body, and parts of who he was, who he had been created to be, disappeared into the void. With one final desperate act he shouted. A cry so loud that it pierced the sky and ground far below in equal measure, and threw the fragments of his mind out in every conceivable direction.

****

Calstus watched in horror as his village was massacred. Frozen to the spot, he felt as though he had grown deep roots into the ground, and his throat began to close. Behind him he heard his family shift inside of their house, hiding. His little sister whimpered, which jolted him back into action. He had just come into manhood, and knew he had to protect them. His father, crippled at an early age, could do nothing with a weapon in hand.

He looked to his right at the pitchfork stuck into the ground. With sweaty hands he grabbed it and pulled it from its earthly sheathe. One of the invading men stopped and looked at Calstus, a gleam in his eye that he had never seen before in a man. He raised the pitchfork to chest level, and, as deeply as he could, yelled “Stay away!” He swore he meant to yell. But instead, a hoarse whisper is all that came.

The man barked a laugh and sprinted at him. When he got close enough to be in range, Calstus jabbed, but was met with an easy parry from the man’s shortsword. The last thing that he saw was the blade sinking deep into his chest. There was no pain. No feeling at all, actually. As he fell down to the earth below him, his senses picked up a large and powerful frequency that seemed to split all of reality around him. It was a cry, he thought. A primal scream. Maybe he had made it. That was his final thought as a black void enveloped his entire being.

****

Calstus jolted awake. In fact, he flew up onto his feet, fists at the ready. For a moment, his mind swarmed with the activity of thousands of voices. A mountainous consciousness threatening to easily overpower his own. Then it was gone. Or, at least, subdued. He gasped, and felt his chest, but there was no wound there. As his eyesight returned to him, all he could see was smoke, and hidden flames behind it, roaring to life and pressing their heat all against his skin. Whatever he was standing on was not stable ground. He jumped, and jumped further and higher than he ever had before.

When he landed, it was solid earth once again. Looking back, he saw what he had been laying on. A mound of bodies. All of the people he had ever known and loved, were going up in flames. “What the hell!” Shouted a man to his right. Calstus’s head snapped to look at the man. It was the same one that had stabbed him. “That’s…that’s impossible, I killed you!” The man’s eyes were huge, reflecting the fire behind Calstus. With a snarl, he rushed forward with speed as he had never known.

In an instant he was at the man, and grabbed him by the throat. A memory, not his own, flashed to a time where he had done something similar. With inhuman strength he threw the struggling man backwards, onto the mound of flames.

“Alright, I was sent to come grab you, we’re done here.” A gruff disembodied voice called from ten feet away, the owner of the voice hidden by the deep black smoke filling the sky. A moment later the man emerged from the veil, and stared at Calstus. Hearing the cries of the man that Calstus had thrown, he immediately brought up his spear and threw it with deadly accuracy right at Calstus’s chest. It seemed to move in slow motion.

Calstus easily caught the spear an inch away from his body. He spun with it, and threw it back with twice the speed and accuracy. It impaled the man and sent him flying, his body disappearing back into the void.

It was then that something snapped back into place within his mind. His senses dulled, and his knees started to tremble. He looked back at the mound of those he had loved and fell to his knees, tears starting to stream down uncontrollably.

His whole body started to tremble as his sobs racked his body. “Why?!” He wanted to shout, but could not find the energy to do so. Hopelessness began to well inside of his body, threatening to shut everything down. Right at the apex of his sorrow, however, he heard something within his head that forced everything else out.

A deep, unfettered voice that had the authority to command armies. Something that was not his own consciousness, but was definitely living inside of him. As the clouds above started to unleash a torrent of rain on the scarred pit of land, Calstus whispered “What?” out loud, not sure he had heard correctly. The voice replied, this time much clearer than before.

“You know, I think we can help one another out…”