Origins of the Never: A prequel to The Tales of the Neverwar series, with dragons, elves, and faeries. For Young Adults and Teens (5 page)

The Next Day

Tenybris watched Olumé approach. He was alone. Behind and to the sides, Tenybris’s forces covered the vast plain like locusts.

Beyond this valley lay death. Throughout the Lands, hundreds of towns and thousands of villages were deserted, their inhabitants dead, or worse.

The lucky ones were killed by the attacks on their townships. The rest stood behind their new master, looking with dead eyes and bloody hands at the fortress.

The Citadel topped the hill at the centre of the plains. It was at once a bastion of strength, and a beacon of wonder and beauty. Its marble walls surrounded a rainbow of towers rising into the clouds above.

Tenybris hated it. The voice had long since become his thoughts, and the Citadel represented the home that had rejected him. Although he was born on his island, he’d lived here for centuries before being cast out.

He sensed the familiar souls, hiding inside, as if the walls could stop him. They were friends, once. Now they were vermin, only fit for extermination. He spat on the ground, the grass withering where it landed. Even his steps left blackened marks as he walked across the meadow outside the gates. The Lands had rejected him. Any tenuous bond remaining between Tenybris and the world of his birth was gone, forever.

Olumé walked slowly. He looked around, taking in the host gathering around him as he closed with Tenybris. “Took you long enough, didn’t it? I expected you here a year ago.” His lip rose at one side into a crooked grin. “I take it my little friends surprised you?”

Tenybris glowered, baring his teeth in a mirthless grin. “Again you use the inhabitants of this world against me.”

Olumé smiled, raising his hand to interrupt his old friend. “And yet again, you are wrong. I did not use the Dwelves. They are my friends, the same as you.” He chuckled. “I thought they might enjoy a game. Again, I was correct.”

Tenybris looked at his
friend,
scowling in return. The conquest of the mountain kingdoms had proved his undoing. For months he had thrown his forces into the caves and passages, hoping sheer numbers might be enough. Thousands of his pawns were embedded in granite.

The Dwelven race sang, and as they did, the living rock flowed to their beat. In their own realm they were unbeatable. After almost a year he left, admitting defeat but vowing to return.

His dark hair fanned out as a breeze flowed across the plains, carrying with it the stench of rotting flesh mixed with smoke and ash of the volcanoes on the horizon. Tenybris felt the fear emanating from the walls above, but hesitated as he realised he felt none from Olumé. Instead he felt regret, and a sense of expectation.
But expectation of what?

He shook himself, and the army behind him surged forward as one. “I’m sure Lynnaria will welcome me with open arms when I walk through the gates. I have returned on my own terms, my ‘old friend’.”

The last sentence was pure venom, but Olumé stepped back, smiling. “She is no longer here, Tenybris. She, along with thousands of the People have escaped.” Olumé chuckled again. “By the time you take the Citadel, the portal will be gone also. You are trapped here, my ‘old friend’.”

Tenybris smiled evilly, as he imagined the fear rising inside his former brother. “Then there is but one way off this rock, brother. Your knowledge will help me. I will find Lynnaria and punish her for what she has done.”

It was time. There was no point in delaying the inevitable. Olumé was beyond hope, and any last shred of compassion he had for him was gone. It was time to end him. Tenybris began the spell, uttering the words to rip the soul from his best friend, his brother, but as he did, time seemed to slow. Memories of past days and better times surfaced, of songs and parties. Centuries went past in the blink of an eye, and Tenybris hesitated.
I can’t kill my brother!

‘This thing before you is not your brother,’
said the voice, separate from his thoughts for the first time in years.
‘You were never anything more than a plaything to him and his family. Kill him now, and take your rightful place as ruler of this world.’

Tears flowed like rounded pebbles down his cheeks as the voice’s hatred seeped back into his soul. The final words of the incantation left his lips, just as he saw a flash of silver.

Olumé pulled out a knife, holding it high so it caught the last rays of the dying sun, before plunging it into his own heart. He fell forward into Tenybris’s arms, coughing specks of blood onto his friend’s chest.

Tenybris cradled him, as gentle as a new born babe. The voice screamed in his mind. He didn’t listen. His friend, his brother was dying. And he had caused it.

“Why, Olumé. Why did you do this?” He glanced up and around, his self-control eroded by his grief. For a moment Tenybris glimpsed what he could have had. He stood with his friend and his love. His love for her was different. Lynnaria was a sister, the way it should have been.

Then he looked down into his friend’s lifeless eyes. Had he done this? No! She had! The Darkness took control. He stood up, throwing the body aside. “This was to be our last battle, and you’ve robbed me of that!”

Tenybris reached out to ensnare the soul as it left Olumé’s body. He cursed as it refused to obey his will. His magic could not touch it, because it hadn’t been released at his hand. It escaped into the Never, and Tenybris screamed in fury. He, and the Darkness that drove him, had so looked forward to turning the essence of his greatest threat into one of his slaves.

These people would pay for this trick, and the universe would suffer. He spoke, creating a great chasm before the gates, spewing fire and lava upwards, engulfing the defenders. Any defence they had planned was overcome by the violence of the attack. The sky rained fire, and the rock below the walls shattered. The great marble defences blew inwards, striking the towers. They fell. Tenybris used the Citadel to destroy its inhabitants.

Inside an hour it was in ruins, its people entombed in rubble.

His forces sacked the city, consuming everyone who remained, turning them all into helpless slaves. When he entered the portal chamber, however, he saw the smoking, wrecked pyramid. His rage was complete. He levelled the remaining structures with a single, raging thought, destroying hundreds of his own minions without a concern. He was trapped here. Trapped, on this soon to be lifeless planet.

Tenybris raged for weeks, destroying everything he encountered. Then he began to brood on his failure. Even now, his hunger grew. The only life left on this world was the Dwelves, hidden in their underground labyrinths, or the Dragons.

Their unique form of magic prevented him from feeding on them, but perhaps they might be of a use other that sustenance. He had bent them to his will once before and barely escaped alive. Now, however, they were no match for him. They would serve a far greater need than mere hunger.

It took him several days to travel to the mountain range they called their home. They had erected spells preventing any incursion after his last visit. He cursed Olumé again, as his early death prevented him from discovering his travelling abilities. As he approached, the army was shadowed from high above by Dragon scouting parties.

It was hard to hide an army that seeped the life of the land it stepped on. Its march to the mountains was a stain on the Lands. Tree’s died and birds fell from the skies as they flew across their path.

When he arrived at the foothills he was met by Glyran. The hatred in the Dragon chieftain’s eyes was unmistakable, but Tenybris sensed fear also, and laughed.

“I was told the next time I set foot here, my life would be forfeit, Dragon,” he said, gloating. “Well? What are you waiting for? Kill me! Kill me now before I wipe your insignificant kind off the face of this world.”

Glyran threw back his huge head and roared, as he leapt into the air. He circled the army, breathing fire all across them. Dragonfire is hot enough to turn earth to glass when unleashed in anger, but it was totally ineffective. Tenybris was shielding them with his magic. Glyran called out to his people, and suddenly a hundred Dragons attacked. And a hundred Dragons died, as Tenybris ripped their souls out, destroying them before they could pass to the Never and be reborn again.

Glyran cried in rage and anguish at the loss. Dragonkind lived almost as long as the People. Tenybris had just murdered friends he’d known for thousands of years. It was hopeless to resist he knew now, so he landed dejectedly at his enemy's feet.

“What do you want, Tenybris? You can’t feed on us, and if you’d wanted to destroy us you would have done so by now. So what is it you want?”

Tenybris grinned up at the majestic creature. “Serve me, beast. Serve me and I will let you live. Your eggs and broods will be safe, your females and younglings will be free to live out their years here. As long as you and the rest of the males agree to serve me.”

Glyran’s expression was suspicious. “How can I trust a word you say, Tenybris? You have betrayed and murdered your own People. Your friends are dead at your hands.”

“Dead? Look at them, Glyran. Do they look dead to you?”

The Dragon watched as several forms on horseback rode forward. His face dropped as he recognised them. Their faces were familiar, indeed some had been friends, but their expressions were completely blank.

“Better dead than what you have turned them into, Tenybris. I never thought even you would be capable of this.”

Tenybris laughed as he beckoned, and the line parted as a large box was brought forth.

“You have no need to trust me, Dragon, simply to serve me.” As he spoke, the box was opened to reveal eggs. Dragon eggs. At least ten of them. Glyran watched in horror as Tenybris produced a hammer from thin air and smashed them all. One screamed, as the embryonic form within squirmed out before perishing. A tear splashed on the ground as Glyran cried.

“What is it to be, beast? I can enact a spell right now to bring all your eggs here, and you can watch as I smash each one. Or you can vow to serve me.”

“But what do you want with us, Tenybris?” boomed Glyran, “We are all trapped here. What do you hope to achieve?”

Tenybris had them. He could see the defeat of the Dragon’s face. “Submit to my magic, Glyran. Lower your defences and let me truly command you. You will become mightier than you could ever imagine.”

The Dragon seemed to be tempted to try a last act of defiance, but Tenybris produced a single golden egg from nowhere. “Your son, beast. It’s your final choice. I kill him now, or you all submit. When he comes of age, he also belongs to me. All the males do.”

Glyran looked to the sky and roared an almighty summons. Soon afterwards a deafening sound surrounded them, as thousands of winged forms gathered above. There were multitudes of brown and green lesser Dragons, with a much lower number of greater golds and silvers. With a booming voice, Glyran addressed his people.

“You have all witnessed the power of this...dark elf. I say we have no choice. It is either die or follow. Think hard my people. Make your choice now. All who choose to follow gather above and lower your defences. Those who choose otherwise?” He glanced across at Tenybris at this point, “I say farewell. I love you all, and I will miss you.”

There was a flurry of movement above as the majority of the host gathered into one body. A handful separated off and attempted to escape, but Tenybris reached out his hand, and with a gesture they fell lifeless to the ground. Their souls were destroyed as before, and the universe was diminished as the energy which formed part of its structure was lost forever in an act of utter cruelty.

Tenybris turned to take in the sight of thousands of Dragons above him. At last he could hear their thoughts as their mental defences were lowered. He could sense clearly now the hatred they felt for him, but he laughed as he reached out to all the minds together and cast the spell to bind them to him. The Dragons in the air dropped in agony to the ground, where they lay writhing for hours as the spell completed its transformation.

In the end, all the mighty gold and silver Dragons, along with the lessers were gone. Before Tenybris, stretching in all directions as far as the eye could see was a host of black forms. They were vaguely recognisable as the Dragons they had been, but they were now a visage of pure evil. The heart of each of them was as black as Tenybris’s, but the power imbued in them by the spell allowed them to solve Tenybris’s most immediate problem. They could now navigate the Never, and they were now large enough to carry hundreds of his slaves each.

Tenybris smiled eagerly. His conquest would continue. Slowly, much slower than if he had conquered Sanctuary and its portals. But eventually he would find that world. And when he did, they would beg for death before he was finished.

There was no need to delay. He had stripped this world of everything he required. He hungered and lusted after fresh souls, so he signalled to his forces to climb atop the winged chariots of terror he had created. He mounted Glyran alone. This was to be his steed.

The former Dragon bent his long neck and glared back at Tenybris, but there was none of the fire from before in those beaten eyes. “Where do you wish us to take you, my master?” Glyran meant the words. Tenybris was now his master, and he cackled in glee.

“The closest world with life, beast. I hunger. I need the taste of souls in my mouth...Go!”