Palazin's Rescue

This is a random chapter, about a random character. I haven't quite decided what to do with him yet.


"When Palazin awoke, he found that he was lying still, while evening grew heavy upon the Forest of Zanthion. The woods bore the scars of the battle just concluded. Embers and burning leaves, glowing fiercely red, fell from the trees above, drifting lazily through the air like snow. All around him, they drifted and fell. Burnt and burning leaves, scars of a battle of flame and fire. In the growing dark between the dense trees, fireflies burned peacefully with a soft green light, as though no battle had taken place, in that very spot, a few hours ago. As though no screams of dying men had echoed amidst those very trees, as though no blood had dampened the warm earth above which they danced, spreading thier soft green glow. The hum of forest life, the chatter of unkown creatures, slowly filled the air again, but the nauseating odour of death still hung ponderously over the woods. "The Lord of Wyrd", Palazin recollected from his readings of Zanthian lore, "cares not for the fate of man, looks not upon his doings as would a doting father, but with the gaze of the one who only sees and knows, but cannot change."

The smell of burnt wood, of burnt clothes and flesh, seemed more sharp then ever, as Palazin lay upon the damp grass, in the earthy, living heart of the forest. He was lost in slow thought. He pondered on how Life goes on. Though cities fall, though empires crumble to the dust and memories of granduer fade to nothingness, the fabric upon which the rulers trace their will, outlasts them. There he lay, unable to move, unable to do more than think, and watch as his life faded away, with the blue glow of twilight in the east. Blood drained from his body, flowed away from a hundred small wounds, strokes of swords against his skin. His head felt heavy and numb. He had fallen to a blow on his skull, his helm lay shattered by his side. He closed his eyes, and whispered to himself in his native tongue, words of peace and solace. Visions of home and hearth swam before his eyes. The warm fireside in the cold and damp court of Acousticon, where he made his home, where he had lived as a boy before recruitment to the Iron Wolves. The tales his father told him as a boy, remembered clearly still, as though they were painted in myriad hues beneath his eyelids. Tales of the days of yore, when war was a distant whisper on the lips of aged warriors, when peace was the way of the world, and the spires of Zanthia stretched endlessly to the heavens above, in a glorious procalaimation of the collective strength of the races. He saw men and women, clad in fashions now unknown, pacing streets lined with stone and courts inlaid richly with gold. The visions of the Golden Age swam before him, and in the warm glow of dreams, he fell slowly into a deep trance-like sleep.

He did not know how long it was, before something stirred him again. Indeed he knew not, if that gentle tinkling noise was part of his utopian dream, or some reminder of reality intruding upon his final slumber. Slowly it grew louder. A gentle noise like that on a rivulet flowing in green summer wood, echoing gently in the eaves of the forest. Palazin opened his eyes. It was dark now. He felt weak. Weaker than he had ever felt in his life. A light came from where the sound issued. He turned his eyes and saw a robed figure, slight and sure of foot, carrying a dimly burning lamp, walking amongst the dead on the battlefield. From her feet, burdened with ornaments of silver, came the gentle tinkling sound. It was like music to the weary ears of Palazin. With a shudder, he realized that the girl, for girl it was, must surely be a priestess from the nearby camp of Zanthians, the village of Shadoweve. Shadoweve was the very same rebel camp his band of Iron Wolves had endeavoured to destroy. They were trading in stones with King Calashan's foe, Ascronos. Stones mined from land that was now under Calashan's annex.

Had he been able to move, Palazin would have killed her. Driven his blade through her and found a way to escape into neutral territory. But as he was, he could not do any such thing. He knew that the Clan of the Leaf, the priests of Zanthia, did not distinguish between friend and foe, when offering healing. It was their custom to send aid to the battlefield, to help whoever they could. If Palazin did not recieve healing soon, he would not live. He called out to her, as loudly as he could in his weakened state. He knew not the language of the mountain folk, but she would know the cry of a dying man. With a start, the woman turned towards him, and came running to his side, bells tinkling in agitation as she ran. She knelt by his side and gazed into his face.

She was young, he realized. Not yet out of her growing years. Youthful caprice played with the serious studied look of a learned, if young, priestess, upon the features of her face. In the shadows, Palazin saw that she was beautiful, and regal, and that her eyes burnt fierce and green, like the fireflies that danced all around them. She looked worriedly at his careworn face, with the disdain inherant in the eyes of all peaceful folk when they look upon those they consider responsible for all the havoc and bloodshed in the world. She spoke gently in words he did not understand, though he felt more at ease when he heard them. The language of Zanthia is musical and soothing to the ear. She laid slender fingers upon his forehead and spoke something to herself under her breath. Palazin saw that her fingertips were glowing gently and were growing warm upon his forehead. Then, gradually, he felt a deep peace draw heavily around his mind, like a curtain being slowly lowered. He drifted into heavy sleep once more.."