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Prologue / The Anvil of the Gods


Sarah Tintagyl

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...After the days of Martens the Silver and the when the world was swallowed by pestilence and plague, a world undreamed flickered into the minds and hearts of those without homes. Into this world stepped Vasryne, destined to wear the crowned diadem of Holy America upon a weary head. It is I, her chronicler who alone can tell thee of her saga. Let me tell you of the days of High Adventure!

 

...Deep in the jungles of the Amazon rain forests, now grown with greater strength from the times when all plant life seemed wiped from the desolate landscape of South America, a single canoe paddled down the vast expanse of the river. The single rider wiped the sweat from her brow as her powerful hands steered the boat towards the sound of clanking metal in the distance. She smiled and pulled her black hair back from her eyes. Her body glistened in the sparse rays of moonlight that pierced through the great canopy of trees. In the darkness of the Amazon, wild beasts roared and howled with delight as they watched potential prey slip down the river. The woman gave the same low growl as a single pier came into her view with a single torch lit upon its rickety wood.

 

She let the canoe bob next to the pier before her boots hit hard upon the pier and took the torch in her hand. Another torch appeared from the underbrush as a man walked out.

 

"Exhor guide you, Tebinid, is it finished?" 

 

"Come, see yourself, Vasryne, and admire my handiwork."

 

Vasryne followed the large man up through the jungle path to a single wooden shack. Inside, the shack had few comforts of home aside from a bed, a table, and one chair. Tebinid took her beyond his home, out to a clearing in the back where a great kiln stood in a cloud of smoke. An anvil of equal power sat near the kiln and upon it lay a great sword, glistening as Vasryne's body did on the river. She grinned and reached for the blade. An extension of herself.

 

Her hand touched the hilt and she screamed as the heat from the blade swept onto her skin. Such heat, such pain. But still she held on as if fashioning the blade to her hand. Tebinid looked on, his eyes shining with pride. Finally with a triumphant grunt, Vasryne lay the sword back onto the anvil and looked at her blistered hand, streams of blood and hot pus already snaked down across her palm. "Thank you, Tebinid, it could be made no better."

 

"It is Exhor's sword, fashioned from blood and iron, I could be no happier than to give it to such a worthy warrior." He reached to take her hand. "Come inside, let me bandage it for you."

 

"No," Vasryne pulled away, the blood already drying into a lines of twisted skin boiled on her hand. "It is His mark, it will heal or I will die."

 

"At least stay here for the night or are you hard pressed to continue your adventure?"

 

"I would have hoped to have you come with me. The Games of Manaus are in a week, and in a week, the tribes of the jungle will call me Chieftain and that is when I will need you more than anything, Tebinid. I have enemies and will have more enemies if I win at the Games. Please, make the trip with me."

 

The blacksmith chuckled and rested his strong hand on Vasryne's broad shoulder. "You sleep in my bed tonight. I will wander the forest and listen to the beasts. They will tell me."

 

"You already know what they will tell you, they will say, follow her to Manaus!"

 

"Yes, yes the will, but the way the utter it, the way the natural lights descend from the trees, will put my mind at ease."

 

Vasryne smiled and nodded, "Do not be long friend, I will look for you in the morning." Then she walked into the shack and fell upon the bed as her right palm continued to twist. Her tears came out hot. Exhor would decide if she should live the night.

 

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Exhor sat as judge for the night as Vasryrne writhed on the bed of Tebinid. Her body drenched in sweat as she tore at her clothes, her right palm continuing to twist and warp from the burn of His sword. Her eyes opened in the blackness, a white film covering eyes bleeding from the heat rushing through her body.

 

"Please, Exhor, take me or choose me, do not tease me with pain! I beg you!"

 

But all night she writhed, until the next morning Tebinid returned and found Vasryne laying prone on the floor of her shack, naked and covered in a cold sweat.

 

"Vasryne?" he said, picking her up and laying her on the bed. "Wake up, can you hear me?"

 

She opened her eyes, the film had disappeared while the dried blood caked to her cheeks as she pressed her lips together. "Water, please, I need water." The blacksmith ran to fill up a cracked bowl from a nearby spring in the forest and return it to the struggling woman. As he pressed the bowl to her lips, her color returned and she found the strength to sit up. After choking and finally vomiting on the floor, Vasryne felt ready to talk as she faced her friend. "I have passed the test."

 

"I see that," said Tebinid leaning back in his chair. "Exhor is not a god to be trifled with, I believe he gave you the fight of your life."

 

"If I am going to use His sword and be His champion, I should fear His death more than any death that a fighter can give me. I saw the glimpses of His realm, Tebinid, it is not one I would want to visit without having proved myself worthy of a lifetime of acclamation. Those not worthy burn in the fires of his forges while his champions engorge on food and drink for the rest of eternity. Unless they choose of course to come back into this pit of a world."

 

"I cannot imagine you staying out of this world for too long, Vasryne, this pit is where the fun is at." His laughter shook the walls of the shack. "But let me see what I can do with your clothes, to make you at least somewhat presentable at Manaus. We should get moving soon if we are to be there for the Games."

 

Tebinid, in his minimal skill at a needle and thread refashioned Vasryne's clothes to cover her body, at least what decency required covering, which was not much in the Amazon. Then they set back out on her canoe, against the tide of the mighty river toward the gathering place of the tribes - Manaus.

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