The Day the Stars Fell
A well planned trap unfolds. An ancient magic, unused in Armaviri for a thousand years is revealed. To what consequence?
Blaithe gaped in horror at the destruction unfolding below him in the forested valley.
Blazing fire shot through the sky as comets streaked towards the helpless army. The Aes Sidhe, retreating to their borders, trapped in a valley with wagons carrying their wounded and dead. Caught by a merciless Rundellian force that was lying in wait for them.
It was clear that a sophisticated trap had been orchestrated. The first notice the Sidhe had that something was wrong was when the sky ripped open to show a dark starry night. It had been a slightly overcast day a moment ago - and now hell had arrived in Armaviri. Huge comets streaking out of this portal to another place spread out to maximise their impact across the valley.
Whichever wizards had planned this, had planned it well. Blaithe had never seen anything like it, and he’d been serving in the war for nearly ten years.
These comets fell mercilessly amongst the Sidhe. Explosions tore through the retreating army and the surrounding landscape.
Wagons were ripped apart from the force of the impacts. Sidhe dead flew everywhere. The screams of the dying Sidhe were overshadowed by shock waves released from the impacting comets. In minutes, thousands of the Sidhe army died from the blasts or shrapnel.
This was the one place on their route home where they would be this tightly packed together.
One of the comets slammed into a powerful field of force and exploded. The force barrier stood as a lone bubble of calm amidst the chaos of celestial destruction.
Blaithe was a ranger in the furthest reaches of the east countryside of Rundell, along the Sidhe border. His company, the Grey Eagle watch, had been assigned to wait for an army of Sidhe, coming from the forests to reinforce the Sidhe forces currently occupying the Rundellian city of Palinterra.
The Grey Eagle Watch were among the best at deep woods spy-craft that Rundell had, and had this Sidhe army surrounded by feathered and leaf-covered men. They’d reported back the movements of the army, with precise land markers to their commanders, currently riding with Lord Chauncey’s forces.
Only the Sidhe army that showed up, wasn’t a reinforcing army - it was a retreating one. Coming from Palinterra and not heading to it. The Sidhe had been withdrawing, finally, from the city they had occupied for close to three years now, in this war that had already consumed an entire generation of human men in violence, trauma and death.
On the eastern side of the valley, another set of portals opened up at the top of a hill rise. Fire rained down from these portals, and coated the forest edge like a flowing river of entropy. The flames blocked the path of the retreating army. They were trapped and would have to march through eldritch fire to escape.
Resonant horns blared from the ranks of the Sidhe, who scrambled to put up what defences they could. While the ambush had done incredible damage to their forces, these were the Sidhe. Magical force fields begin popping up as the surviving wizards and sorcerers amongst them began throwing up shielding to prevent the continuing rain of comets from destroying them all.
But that wasn’t Lord Chauncey’s final trick - only his third.
In answer, another set of horns blew, these ones of a deeper timbre.
Hundreds of knights on horseback charged out of a tree line at the top of the valley, with a steep slope near the back of the Sidhe forces. Lines of Sidhe Archers mobilised in response and fired up at the descending knights, while trees grew out of the hillside at a surreal pace to fling themselves into the charging horsemen.
They were prepared for this - glowing purple fields rippled around the knights as arrows bounced off a deflection field protecting their front. These were knights who had been fighting the Sidhe their whole lives.
They smashed into the lines of the Sidhe, and worked their way through the decimated forces with surgical brutality. It was rare to see a human force do such damage to a Sidhe force, but these knights were some of the strongest humans that Lord Chauncey had under his command. And with them rode wizards of the College of Celestial Wizards, known for training powerful battlemages.
The exhausted, wounded, and decimated Sidhe were, for once, outmatched.
Blaithe watched in shock as a trio of knights dismounted to challenge the commander of the Sidhe forces, Lord Satokyrise of House Kymera. An honourable elf, even amongst the humans who hated him for the years of turmoil he’d put them through in reclaiming their city. The commander killed one of the knights before finally falling to the second and third knight. Blaithe was surprised that they bothered to give Satokyrise the courtesy of an honourable death like that, given how they had ambushed the Sidhe Lord.
Howls erupted in response all over the countryside, first from nearby, and then rippling out in all directions. The howls seem to go on forever. A call was going out and all of wolfdom was answering. And by the sounds of it, they were coming here.
Blaithe cursed. He stood up cautiously, and started moving towards Lord Chauncey’s encampment. He’d be safe from the wolves there.
Within a few minutes he heard the tell tale signs. A descending quiet in the forest as predators began to gather, and prey chose to vacate quickly to avoid the incoming danger.
He broke out into a run down the hill as fast as he could, throwing off his cumbersome camouflage cloak. It wouldn’t matter anymore in a moment.
It was a reckless pace, but Blaithe had run for his life enough times to know there was no cautious way to run from wolves. It was be reckless, fight or die.
He bounced off the side of a tree near the bottom of the hill, but kept himself standing and didn’t fall - and was back to running in a heartbeat. The grey eagle watch gets trained to run long and fast. When you have to run from wolves, eagles or crows, and hide from the same, you get good at running or you get retired.
His instinct for danger rang in his head like he was hiding in the belfry when the bell-tower cord got yanked.
Looking up, he saw a descending eagle flying at him at breakneck speed. He leapt to the side and over the edge of a dirt cliff. Landing hard on the ground he allowed himself to collapse and covered his head. He heard the furious screech of the retreating eagle, giving away his position.
Blaithe got back up and ran for his life.
His knack was sensing danger. An unusual magical gift from the gods, given only to a few. Those that receive it are praised for their “practical gift” and told how it will grant them a long and safe life. Which is why the Rundellian army drafted him and sent him into one of the most dangerous assignments you can give to a human. Spying on the ‘elves’ in their own forests.
It’s a shit job.
He ran for hours that evening. The Eagle tried again and almost took off his ear. The Wolves were on him not long after, and this would have been his final stand, if it weren’t for the knight rangers of the Grey Eagle watch that found him. They would have been dispatched as soon as the wolf howl went out, to retrieve him. The knight-rangers made short work of the wolves with their boar-spears and short bows.
“Come brother! We’ve won a great victory against the Sidhe today. They’re celebrating back at the camp,” The elder of the two grey knight rangers said with a jovial tone.
“Nothing about that was a great victory,” said the younger of the two knights, a man in his early thirties with dark hair and a short beard, who looked disgusted. “There was no honour in it. Rohan Satokyrise was retreating, as agreed. I don’t lament his death…” he spat over the far side of his horse. “But I’ll naught be pleased that his Lordship made me party to this dishonour.”
Blaithe agreed with the knight. Sir Geoffrey was well known among those who were drafted from the farming villages as a rare example of how far a farmer’s son can rise if he does his job well. Many men owed him their lives, and Blaithe was now one of them.
“Aye.” Blaithe said, “They’ll remember this for as long as they live, which is far past any of us. Never cross a Sidhe, they say. They don’t forget or forgive. We should have just let them go.”
He found himself saying that many times that night as the camp celebrated the Sidhe’s defeat and Palinterra’s liberation. Some agreed. Many didn’t. The siege had been long and painful for everyone.
Blaithe would run for his life many times that year. Something had changed in the forest after “The Day the Stars Fell.” It was as if the forest itself had awoken from a long slumber.
And it was angry.
Editorial Note;
Happy new year!
May your troubles be resolved with no more effort than you have energy to meet them with, and may overcoming them lead you to a greater state of joy and self confidence.
Cheers,
Robin George
"This won't turn out well at all. The sidhe never forget and it'll be our children's children that pay the price." Nameless soldier in the field.