The Jaunt

The morning air carried the scent of leather and steel as they secured their belongings into weathered saddlebags. Kawn adjusted his sword belt, the familiar weight of his blade settling against his hip.

Amon paused in his preparations, his weathered eyes catching the glint of sunlight on Kawn's sword hilt. Something about those ancient markings stirred a memory.

"Let me examine your sword," Amon said, urgency sharpening his voice and making Kawn look up.

"This old thing?" Kawn's hand moved instinctively to the worn grip. "I've carried it since my father's death. Nothing special about it."

"Hand it over." Amon's tone left no room for argument as he extended his calloused palm.

Kawn reluctantly drew the blade, watching Amon's eyes widen as the steel caught the light. The old wizard took the weapon with reverence, his fingers tracing the intricate symbols etched along the fuller.

"By the ancient gods..." Amon whispered, his voice trembling. "This is Dryvinnyu�"the Lost Blade of Legends. These symbols..." He pointed to each marking with a shaking finger. "Love, Strength, Luck, Courage, Hope. The five virtues that make a warrior unconquerable."

He pressed the sword back into Kawn's hands with ceremony. "As long as you possess all five virtues, no enemy can stand against you. Your father knew exactly what he left you, boy."

Kawn stared at the blade with new eyes, feeling its weight differently now�"not just steel and leather, but destiny itself.

"How do you know all this?" Kawn asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

Amon's weathered face grew distant, as if seeing through the veils of time itself. "Because I was there when it was forged, boy. Two thousand years ago, in the fires of Mount Kethara, when the realm faced its darkest hour." His fingers traced the air above the symbols. "The master smiths worked for seven days and seven nights, binding the essence of each virtue into the metal itself. I watched them pour their very souls into that blade."

The old wizard's eyes met Kawn's. "Your bloodline has carried this burden for generations�"guardians chosen not by birth, but by the strength of their character. Your father never told you because he hoped you'd never need to know. But the blade calls to its true wielder when darkness rises."

Amon's voice dropped to a whisper. "And darkness is rising again, Kawn. I can feel it stirring in the north."

They mounted their horses and rode toward Pelenecki, the morning sun warming their backs as they left Randoa behind. Neither could have imagined that miles away, their world was already crumbling.

---

The Northern Forest had stood sentinel for two millennia, its ancient trees swaying in winds that carried secrets older than memory. But these were no ordinary trees. Deep within their bark, beneath layers of moss and time, slumbered the Dyjnni�"three legions of the most feared warriors ever to darken the world's battlefields.

At the forest's heart, a figure in a simple brown dress knelt among the roots. Letha pressed her hands against the earth as she whispered words in the old tongue. Her voice, so often filled with laughter in her husband's arms, now carried the cold authority of command.

"Awaken, my children. The time of hiding is over."

The ground shuddered beneath their feet. Ancient bark splintered and cracked as shapes began to emerge�"tall, skeletal figures with eyes like molten coals and weapons forged in the fires of their distant homeland. One by one, then by dozens, then by hundreds, they tore free from their wooden prisons.

Letha stood, her gentle housewife's mask dissolving to reveal the ruthless Dyjnni commander she'd always been. "Two thousand years we've waited. Today, Ramadaggan falls."

The assault began at dawn.

---

In the Hall of Kings, the Dragon Lord occupied his marble throne as morning light poured through stained glass windows depicting long-forgotten victories. The tranquil scene exploded into chaos as Franklin crashed through the great doors, his armor dented and streaked with blood.

"My Lord!" Franklin gasped, staggering forward. "The forests�"they were never forests at all!"

The Dragon Lord rose, his crown gleaming in the filtered light. "Speak plainly, Franklin. What are you saying?"

"Dyjnni forces, sire. Thousands of them. They were transformed, sleeping in the trees for... for centuries." Franklin's voice broke as the full horror dawned on him. "And their commander... it's Letha. Kawn's wife. She's one of them."

The revelation hung in the air like a curse. The Dragon Lord's face drained of color as he grasped the scope of the betrayal.

"Impossible," he breathed. "She bore his children. She nursed his wounds. She..."

"She was a spy, my Lord. Playing the longest game imaginable."

The Dragon Lord's hands curled into fists. "How do I tell him? Who would believe that the woman who shared his bed was an enemy agent?" He whirled toward his chamberlain. "Lao! Send Bio to find them. But wait�"I need time to find words for this nightmare."

"At once, sire," Lao replied, his face mirroring their shared dread.

Before the Dragon Lord could continue, Franklin crumpled, crimson pooling across his breastplate.

"Report!" the Dragon Lord barked, his voice bouncing off the stone walls.

"They strike from three directions, my Lord," Franklin rasped, leaning into Lao's steadying grip. "Front, left flank, and right. Our men fight with courage, but we're outnumbered three to one."

"I didn't ask for your assessment of our chances!" The Dragon Lord's voice cracked like a whip across the throne room. "How do our forces hold?"

Franklin coughed, blood speckling his lips. "They hold, but barely. I sent Raz to find the Brothers Kelvin�"they're our only hope now."

"Take him to the infirmary," the Dragon Lord ordered Lao. As they departed, he slumped back into his throne, suddenly feeling every year of his long reign weighing on his shoulders. "May the gods grant us strength in this darkest hour."

"There! The king!"

The shout echoed from the corridor as Dyjnni soldiers burst into the sacred hall. The Dragon Lord rose, drawing his blade in one fluid motion, and offered a silent prayer to whatever gods might be listening.

"Death to the tyrant!" the lead soldier snarled, raising his curved scimitar.

But the Dragon Lord had not ruled for thirty years without learning how to fight. His sword sang through the air, taking the attacker's head clean off. In the same motion, he pivoted and drove his blade through the second soldier's throat. The third lost his sword hand to the Dragon Lord's backswing, and the fourth fled screaming down the corridor.

"I must stand with my people," the Dragon Lord muttered, and charged after the fleeing soldier toward the battle that raged beyond his palace walls.

Outside, the sight of their king joining the fray sent a surge of hope through the defending forces. "The Dragon Lord fights with us!" they cried. "For the king!"

But as the dual suns began their descent, painting the sky in shades of amber and gold, something miraculous occurred. Juma, the largest of their world's three moons, moved in front of its smaller siblings, casting everything in an ethereal violet light.

The Dyjnni attacks slowed, then stopped entirely. In that strange purple glow, their vision failed them�"a weakness the Dragon Lord remembered from ancient texts.

"Thank you," he whispered skyward, watching as the enemy forces retreated to a safe distance and began launching flaming projectiles at the city walls instead.

He grabbed the nearest soldier by the shoulder. "Take ten men. Find their catapults and destroy them before they breach our walls."

"For Ramadaggan!" the soldier shouted, and led his squad into the violet-tinged night.

---

In the pre-dawn darkness, as Juma finally moved aside and normal moonlight returned, the Dragon Lord sat in his library surrounded by ancient tomes. One particular volume lay open before him�"a history of the great Dyjnni disappearance two thousand years prior.

"The missing legions," he read aloud. "Vanished without trace during the reign of Juma the First, Lord of all Effreiti, bearer of the Scepter of Cosiximus Laxitus..."

The pieces clicked into place. The timing, the numbers, the strategic positioning�"everything had been planned for millennia.

A soldier entered with casualty reports. The news was grim, but the catapult mission had succeeded. As dawn approached with its twin suns cresting the horizon, another miracle arrived: Raz, leading two figures that crackled with barely contained lightning.

"The Brothers Kelvin, my Lord," Raz announced.

Two bolts of pure energy struck the floor. From their dissipating light stepped the legendary warriors. Rolfe, the elder, bore scars from a thousand battles, while his brother Gareth moved with the fluid grace of a born killer.

"We come for Kawn's sake," Rolfe declared, his voice like distant thunder. "Our debt to him runs deeper than blood. When we finish here, we ride to find the Renduits."

"Can you handle two-to-one odds?" the Dragon Lord asked.

Rolfe grinned�"an expression both terrible and beautiful. "Brother, shall we show them what the Kelvin name means?"

What followed wasn't a battle�"it was an exhibition of divine warfare. The Brothers Kelvin raised their lightning-charged blades and carved through the Dyjnni ranks like reapers through wheat. Each swing left dozens dead, their weapons trailing arcs of brilliant energy.

By noon, it was over. The surviving Dyjnni forces fled northward, leaving behind a field of the dead that would echo in songs for generations.

The Dragon Lord surveyed the carnage with a heavy heart. Victory had come at a terrible price�"the bodies of his people lay scattered like fallen leaves. Somewhere out there, Kawn rode unknowing toward whatever destiny awaited him.

"Thank you, Brothers Kelvin," he said solemnly. "May your journey to the Renduits be swift and safe."

"Sire," Raz stepped forward, his young face etched with determination. "I request permission to join them. My master must know what has transpired here."

The Dragon Lord nodded gravely. "Go, young apprentice. Bear these dark tidings to Kawn. He'll need every ounce of strength that blade of his can muster."

As the Brothers Kelvin prepared to depart, Rolfe turned back to the Dragon Lord, his weathered face grave. "There's something you should know about the boy's sword."

"Dryvinnyu?" The Dragon Lord's eyebrows rose. "Amon identified it this morning."

"Then the old wizard's eyes are sharper than I gave him credit for." Gareth stepped closer, his voice dropping to barely above a whisper. "We forged that blade, my Lord. Two thousand years ago, in the fires of Mount Kethara."

The Dragon Lord stared at them in stunned silence. "You... forged it?"

Rolfe nodded slowly. "Kawn's father came to us when the boy was still learning to walk. Said he'd had a vision�"his son would need a weapon that could stand against the darkness itself."

"The five virtues aren't just symbols," Gareth added, his hand unconsciously moving to his own blade. "They're alive in that metal. As long as Kawn embodies them, the sword will never fail him. But if he loses even one..."

"The blade becomes ordinary steel," Rolfe finished grimly. "And in the battles ahead, ordinary won't be enough."

Raz shifted uncomfortably in his saddle. "My master carries great burdens. The loss of his wife, his children's safety�"how can he maintain hope when his world crumbles around him?"

The brothers exchanged a meaningful glance. "That's why we ride with you, young apprentice," Rolfe said gently. "Not just to deliver news, but to remind him who he truly is. The Kawn we knew would never surrender to despair."

"And if he has?" Raz asked quietly.

Gareth's smile was fierce as lightning. "Then we'll drag him back from whatever dark place he's fallen into. That's what brothers do."

As the three figures mounted their horses and rode toward the distant horizon, the Dragon Lord watched them disappear into the fading light. He wondered if their paths would ever cross again. The real war, he knew in his bones, was only just beginning.

The road to Pelenecki wound through rolling hills dotted with abandoned farmsteads, their empty windows staring like dead eyes across overgrown fields. Kawn pulled his horse to a halt beside a weathered signpost, its paint long since faded.

"Something's wrong here," he murmured, scanning the desolate landscape. "These lands were thriving when I passed through last spring."

Amon urged his mount closer, his weathered face creased with concern. "The corruption spreads faster than we thought. Look at the crops."

Where golden wheat should have swayed in the afternoon breeze, blackened stalks stood twisted and brittle. The very soil seemed to recoil from their horses' hooves, cracking like parched leather beneath the weight.

"This isn't natural blight," Kawn observed, dismounting to examine the diseased earth. As his boots touched the ground, Dryvinnyu pulsed with a warm light at his hip. The sword's glow intensified as he knelt, pressing his palm to the corrupted soil.

"The blade recognizes it," Amon said quietly. "Dark magic. Ancient and purposeful."

A child's cry echoed from the ruins of a nearby cottage. Both men spun toward the sound, hands moving instinctively to their weapons. Through the broken doorway stumbled a girl no older than ten, her clothes torn and her face streaked with tears and soot.

"Please," she gasped, collapsing at Kawn's feet. "They took my family. The shadow people�"they came in the night."

Kawn lifted the child gently, his heart clenching at her terror. "You're safe now. What shadow people?"

"They moved like smoke," she whispered against his shoulder. "And their eyes... their eyes burned like coals. They dragged Papa and Mama into the dark woods. I hid in the root cellar, but I could hear them screaming."

Amon's face had gone pale as parchment. "Dyjnni scouts. They've been harvesting the population for weeks, maybe months. Building their strength while we remained blind."

"We have to help her family," Kawn said, but even as the words left his lips, he knew the truth. The screaming had stopped days ago.

The girl pulled back, her young eyes holding wisdom no child should possess. "They're gone, aren't they? I felt it when the screaming stopped. Felt something break inside my chest."

Kawn's throat tightened. He thought of his own children, safe in their beds when he'd left this morning. How quickly that safety could shatter. "What's your name, little one?"

"Sera," she whispered. "Will you take me with you? I have nowhere else to go."

Before Kawn could answer, the ground beneath their feet began to tremble. From the corrupted forest came a sound like breaking glass mixed with dying screams�"the hunting call of Dyjnni trackers.

"They're coming back," Sera breathed, her small hands clutching Kawn's tunic. "They always come back for the ones who got away."

Amon was already mounting his horse, his staff beginning to glow with protective wards. "We need to move. Now. If they catch our scent..."

"I won't abandon her," Kawn declared, lifting Sera onto his saddle. "She comes with us."

"That child will slow us down," Amon protested, but his eyes held no real conviction. "And if the Dyjnni are tracking survivors..."

"Then we give them something else to track." Kawn drew Dryvinnyu, and the blade sang with righteous fury. The corrupted ground around them began to steam and crack as the sword's pure light touched it. "Let them come. I'm tired of running from shadows."

The hunting cries grew closer, accompanied now by the thunder of approaching hoofbeats. Through the diseased trees came riders cloaked in darkness, their mounts breathing smoke and flame.

"Three of them," Amon counted grimly. "Advance scouts, but deadly ones."

Kawn settled Sera behind him, feeling her small arms wrap around his waist. "Hold tight, little warrior. Today you learn what it means to fight back. Kawn settled Sera behind him, feeling her small arms wrap around his waist. "Hold tight, little warrior. Today you learn what it means to fight back. These few specters are no match for all of us. Balder and Raglan flank from the right! Raglan and Dofert flank from the left! Taran and Amon with me head on!" The battle was swift and merciless. Dryvinnyu cleaved through shadowy forms, its pure light burning away dark magic like morning mist. Sera watched, her small face a mask of grim determination, as Kawn and his brothers dispatched the Dyjnni scouts with brutal efficiency. By the time silence returned to the diseased landscape, only wisps of dark smoke remained where the riders had been, and the corrupted ground steamed with the sword's righteous heat.

A woman emerged from the wreckage of what used to be a hut. "Sera, is that you?" Sera peeked her head around Kawn and recognized her mother. She held out her hands towards Sera, gesturing for her to come. "We will take that wagon far from here to a safer place." Sera hugged Kawn and thanked him as she dismounted. She ran to her mother's arm and started weeping. "Thank you for keeping her safe." She helped the little girl into the wagon and the rode off towards the safety of Randoa.