Chronicles of Den'dra - Spencer Johnson Page 0,173
It manifested as clear skies and a wind that seemed to favor the river boat until one day, Incrin had gotten into a fight. A dense fog had appeared and strange winds blew from all directions before a blow had fallen him. The crew and captain had thrown him overboard where he narrowly avoided drowning. A member of the Order had pulled him from the water and nursed him back to health in the shelter. It was there, as some said, that he found his true Gift. His ability to absorb knowledge was unmatched. Soon he had taken over the archives and now considered them his own kingdom.
“Stone Walker faced the faceless dark hordes with his mighty mace, Giansar’thrack. Earth iron. It seemed a light tap, except the ground shook at the mace’s impact. A tear appeared and swallowed hundreds of the twisted creatures. The tide of the battle between human and wrathy spawn was turned by Stone Walker. After barring the advance of the hideous halflings, Stone Walker sought out and attacked the Wraith controlling the horde. We were forced to retreat and watch from afar as Stone Walker battle the cursed being. The earth heaved and tore the tear even wider. We feared the mountains would crumble with the ferocity of the battle. The Vaulwar mountain side was pummeled into sand before the battle was finished. The Wraith escaped with his life, but so did the majority of the human and dwarven host. Stone Walker departed after the Wraith leaving us to finish the broken halfling army. To this day, that crack still remains carved down the mountain. A testament to the power of the Dragon Lords.” Incrin hardly realized he was reading aloud.
Most would have denounced the retelling a blaspheme, written by the deceived, but Incrin had long ago decided that the Wraith were not the heroes that they were made out to be. Every tale told by the “deceived” matched while the tales written by the “enlightened” among the order were often conflicting and written years after the actual events. Written by people whose only sources of information had been nothing but what they felt must be right because the Dragon Lords could not have been heroes. It disgusted Incrin that such people called themselves scholars. This was the second to the last time that the weapon entitled Earth Iron had been mentioned. The next time was at a recounting of Stone Walker’s tomb and burial.
“Stone Walker was the first of the Dragon Lords to die, scarcely three years after the beginning of the curse. He spent almost every moment of his life after the war ended by carving tunnels through the length and breadth of the Vaulwar. We found him lying in a tunnel and carved his tomb out of the stone he had died within. The humans desired his final resting place to be above the ground so his tomb was carved into the side of Mount Kivalin. At his side, the (a splatter of ink obscured the next words) laid Giansar’thrack that he might have a familiar shape at his side for the next life.” Incrin mused with a frown. This was the copy of the scroll that Reigns had used to find the forged mace in the first place. No one had known it existed until Reigns had set a scribe to translating it. Incrin scowled bitterly that he hadn’t the original. The scribe had told him that the original was damaged in that line also, but there was no excuse for spilling ink on it.
“A familiar shape. Interesting wording… I wonder…” Incrin hastily lit a new candle from the stump of the one dying before rifling through the racks of scrolls. Finding the one he sought after several minutes, he returned to the table. This one would have been consigned to a fire pile with great ceremony by many in the order if they knew who the author was. An actual Dragon Lord. Written in the ancient tongue as it was, few could read it. Of the few that prided themselves in their knowledge of the ancient tongue, few knew the ancient dialect of the tongue that the Dragon Lords used. It was almost different enough to be called an ancient tongue in its own right.
“The curse affected all the races differently. The dark elves were hardly affected while the light elves, dragons and Dragon Lords were affected the heaviest. Humans were struck down by three out of four in the