DARK WAR REBORN; From Magicless Boy to World's Hidden Hope

Chapter 2: The Weight of Old Tales

A week had passed since Wade vanished, and the villagers of Norwick spoke in low voices of strange lights seen on the distant moors; will-o’-the-wisps, they claimed, though no one ventured out after dark to prove it.

Wayne had thrown himself into the work of the manor: mucking stables, hauling firewood, running errands to the smithy. Anything to keep his hands busy and his thoughts from chasing his father’s departing shadow. Calley watched him with sharp eyes, saying little, but she matched him blow for blow in their dawn sparring sessions. Already the bruises on his arms had begun to yellow.

That evening, rain lashed the manor walls and drummed on the slate roof. The three of them Alard, Calley, and Wayne sat alone in the smaller solar above the great hall. A single brazier glowed, throwing long shadows across the tapestries. Supper had been cleared away only a flagon of watered ale and three cups remained on the scarred oak table.

Wayne stared into the coals. The question had been building in him for days, pressing against his teeth until he could no longer swallow it.

“Uncle,” he said at last, voice low but steady, “why did my father truly leave? He spoke of darkness stirring, of a prophecy and a child. But he told me nothing of substance. I am not a boy anymore. I deserve to know what he rides toward.”

Calley glanced at her father. Alard sat motionless for a long moment, turning his cup slowly between calloused palms. When he spoke, as though each word cost him something.

“Your father would skin me for this,” he muttered. Then his voice increased, “But you have his stubborn look, Wayne. And Calley has ears sharper than any blade. Very well. I will tell you what little the Conclave lets trickle down to common folk and what the tavern talks and frightened riders carry beside them.”

He leaned forward placing his elbows on the table.

“Twenty-five years ago, in the month of Black Frost, the archmages felt a tremor in the weave of the world. A soul that should have been bound forever beyond the Veil slipped back into flesh. Ramona, the Mistress of the Dark Lord Dyrk, was reborn. Not as she was known but in some new vessel, some infant girl who drew breath and cried like any other. The seers could not find her. They scryed and bled and burned rare herbs until their eyes ran red, but the gods hid her well, or perhaps her new body was shielded by older fouler powers.”

Calley’s hand crept to the hilt of the dagger at her belt. Wayne sat very still.

“Ten years ago,” Alard continued, “the first true signs came. Villages in the far north vanished overnight. Wells ran black. Children were found with the mark of the crescent moon on their skin; Ramona’s old sigil. Beasts that had not walked the earth since Dyrk’s fall were seen again: wargs the size of ponies, shadow-wolves that left no print. Orc tribes, long scattered and leaderless, began to gather under a single banner none had seen before. Someone or something was calling them.”

He drank deeply, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Fifteen years ago, the Oracle of Hidden Plague spoke a prophecy. Saying a child would be born beneath a blood-red star, bearer of both light and shadow, who alone could stand against the Mistress and prevent the Dark Lord’s return. The archmages have hunted that child ever since. They watch birthing rooms, question midwives, test infants with silver needles and whispered cantrips. Nothing, they tell us. Either the child was never born, or it hides as cleverly as Ramona herself.”

Wayne’s voice came out rough. “And my father rides to find this savior?”

“Among other things, yes.” Alard’s eyes were hard. “The Conclave summons every mage of power. Some go willingly. Some… do not return the same. There are whispers that certain houses have turned. Mages who once swore oaths now traffic with the shadows. They say Ramona promises them what Dyrk once did: dominion over life and death. A seat at her right hand when the world kneels.”

Calley broke in, unable to hold her tongue any longer. “But if she’s been growing in power for ten years, why haven’t we seen armies at our gates? Why only rumors?”

“Because she is not yet whole,” Alard said grimly. “The vessel is mortal. It ages. It can be killed while she is still bound to it. That is why both sides hunt. Ramona seeks to complete the rituals that will make her eternal once more. The Conclave seeks to find and slay her before she does. And both seek the prophesied child, for whoever holds that child holds the key to victory.”

Silence fell, broken only by the rain and the snap of burning coal.

Wayne rose abruptly and paced to the arrow-slit window. His reflection stared back at him as ordinary as always, tall and thin, no spark of mage fire in his eyes. No trace of the gift.

“I am tired of waiting for saviors,” he said, the words bursting out of him like a long-held breath. “Fifteen years they have searched and found nothing. My father risks his life on a prophecy that may be empty. And we sit here like sheep, praying some child will appear to save us.”

He turned to face them again with clenched fists.

“In the old tales, it was not only mages who broke Dyrk’s host at the Battle of Broken Chains. It was the swords of men, thousands of them held the line while the archmages sang their spells. Common steel bought the world its freedom when magic faltered. If this Ramona comes again, let her face more than spells. Let her face men who will not wait for miracles.”

Alard studied him for a long moment, something unreadable moving behind his eyes.

“And what would you have, nephew?” he asked quietly.

“Train me,” Wayne said. “Not just the forms you show the village boys. Train me as you were trained before the gift passed you by, as my father never had time to do. Make me a swordsman. A real one. If the world must be saved, let mere men have a hand in it this time. Starting with me.”

Calley’s grin flashed sudden and fierce. “I’ll help. Someone has to keep him from cutting his own foot off.”

Alard leaned back in his chair. The firelight carved deep lines into his face, making him look older than his years.

“You ask for too much,” he said at last. “Training a swordsman is not gentle work. Bones break. Scars come. Some mornings you will hate me.”

“I already hate waiting,” Wayne replied.

Alard gave a short surprised bark of laughter, the first Wayne had heard from him.

“Gods preserve us,” Alard muttered. “Another stubborn fool in the family.”

He rose and extended his hand across the table, palm up; the old warrior’s gesture.

“Very well. Come dawn tomorrow, in the yard. We begin with footwork until your legs scream. And if you quit, I’ll drag you back by the ear. Understood?”

Wayne clasped the offered forearm firmly, feeling the hard calluses of a lifetime gripping hilt and shield.

“Understood.”

Calley whooped softly and punched Wayne in the shoulder hard enough to sting, at least with his decision to learn the sword, she won’t beat him easily during their forthcoming sparring anymore.