Sample Chapter
The
thunder of war rumbled below the dimly lit cavern. Kapulin
had been born amidst those sounds, and he would pass
from this world to their accompaniment.
His ears and his heart ached at the screams that echoed through
the
valleys and up his mountain where with a final reverberation they faded
against
the rock walls of his dwelling.
For 100 years, the Interrans had waged a civil
war against their brethren, the Zaeferi.
Kapulin shook his head at the foolishness and wastefulness of
this war,
for the Interrans were Zaeferi and had initiated the Civil War to take
control
of the home planet of their race, which held almost all the artifacts of
the
ancients.
When
the Damanites, a species from a distant solar system, witnessed the
carnage,
they seized the opportunity to expand their holdings in the universe. These beings knew no mercy and were
incapable of feeling emotion. It
was their sole purpose to achieve power and individually they sought it
by
achieving the highest rank. To do
so they were willing to commit whatever atrocity was necessary and so
they
perpetrated the most cruel beatings, tortures, and enslavement upon the
innocents in their efforts to rule.
They were evil incarnate.
His contemplation was interrupted by a
silver-blue streak of lightening that emanated from the skies and
cracked
against the tip of the furthest mountaintop. It
created a clap of thunder that muted the sounds of
battles and the cries and screams of the victims far below. Kapulin knew it was a sign from the god
Elahim, his god, and that the lightning reflected but a minute portion
of the
power Elahim imbued in the work Kapulin had spent the last years of his
life
completing. The prophecies had
dictated such, and so it would be.
Elahim had given him a task just as he had
given a similar task to seven others before Kapulin. Based
on the runes on an ancient scroll each man was to
create a sword that would contain an elemental power, which the chosen
would
use to defeat the Damanites. The scroll contained
the formula for forging
each of the eight swords and was enhanced by a series of prayers and
enchantments as dictated by Elahim.
Kapulin, like the other elders selected for
this appointment, had lived a prior life of learning, mysticism and
austerity. He became wise but was ill suited for
hammering metal against an anvil.
His hands had grown calloused and muscled as the metal took
shape. Only recently, had he added one final
touch to the sword and etched a design on its hilt that would provide a
clue to
the individuals who would become known as the saviors of their solar
system. That clue would lay out
Elahim's plan and enable them to reach their goal.
Tonight with the sounds of war still ever
present Kapulin finished polishing the sword and he could feel the power
within
as if it were a living thing, waiting to be set free. He
knew he had achieved his purpose in this life and he knew
that just as the other elders who had preceded him that soon he would be
called
to the presence of Elahim and his final home on Paradise Isle.
He placed the sword in its hiding place
within
the cavern and lay down on his pallet one last time, exhausted. Immediately, a burst of lightening
streaked across the sky. It
crashed through the mountaintop that housed the final sword and struck
it,
intensifying the power that it held.
In the village below the Damanites stood and
stared in shock at the
sight as the mountain was torn apart by the lightning. They
were unaware that it was the
beginning of their destruction.
Interrans recognized it as a sign from the great Elahim, and they
rallied together and took the remaining Zaeferi with them to safety.
The
Damanites ran, desperately trying to save themselves as additional bolts
of
lightning turned against them. The
peril they now faced was greater than the control they once held had
been to
their captives.
Each element of
the swords, lightning, rain, ice, wind and all their counterparts soon
filled
the atmosphere seemingly aimed directly against the Damanite forces. The
Damanites dropped to their deaths unable to save their own wretched
souls.
Elahim
destroyed the Damanite control in fulfillment of the prophecies. Those few Damanites who escaped went
into hiding on their home worlds, thus allowing the Zaeferi and
Interrans to
start life anew, creating new inhabitants on their worlds and praising
Elahim.
Their disputes were set aside as they acknowledged their allegiance to
their
god.
Kapulin,
whose life force was rabidly ebbing, was the only living being on the
planet
who realized the battle between good and evil had only begun. These past
years
of war and deprivation were but a precursor of what was to come. The
prophecies
defined the future for centuries.
Learned men from both races would wait for the chosen eight to
appear.
It
was Kapulin's only regret that he could not live long enough to see the
birth
of the saviors; the saviors the worlds would come to know as the Regime
Guard.
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