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The narrow cave exit echoed with the dying screams of Alanin's last living exploration party companion. The noises in the place bounced through his head in clear cunning detail, being amplified by the close spaces. He could hear the sound of humans being viscously ripped to pieces and devoured. He could hear the sound of claws scratching along the cold stone roofs and walls, the sounds of evil things, things that lived underground, things that were coming to get him. He picked himself up off the floor and stumbled towards the ever growing spot of light ahead.  The sounds grew closer again; he had lost count of how many times they had done so before, only to have receded with another of his screaming companions.

            Now they were gone.

            Now it was only him.

            Now it was his turn.

            His thoughts gave him further energy, and he rushed forward into the glowing radiant sunshine of the outdoors. He continued until he could walk no further and stumbled onto the damp earth, out of breath and thanking his god for having mercy on his soul. Then he heard footsteps behind him. He flipped onto his back and scrambled back from the entrance of the cave. Out of the gloom emerged four tall slender humanoids, one ahead of the others clearly the leader locked eyes with him and suddenly he was hearing her voice.

            "Run back to your home, tell them what has happened, tell them what is coming." He heard. Then they were gone.



            Rhett ran towards the growing crowd, towards the voice of his father, his father had been missing for a day. His father was calling fro him. He rushed forward pushing aside the gathering people from his town. He finally reached his father, Alanin, and dropped to his knees beside the beaten and bloodied old man. He had never seen his father looking like this, not ever.

            The old man looked up into his son's eyes "They are coming, you must stop them, you must!" he pulled himself up to his sons face "Take the swords, take them and the best men you can find, you can't let them co-...." the old mans voice broke and the light dimmed in his wise eyes, he fell from his young sons arms onto the earth. Rhett gently closed his father's eyes, eyes that would never open again.

            "You heard the man!" Rhett bellowed to the nearest high ranking officials. "He told me to take swords, and the best men, someone get the swords and the necklace! A messenger must be sent to the surrounding towns, tell them that a terrible tragedy has occurred, and we need their best men." Rhett momentarily lost his composure. "Tell them our Lord is dead. Go! Go now!"



            A day had passed since the death of his father, Rhett was now the Lord of his town, and he was only 17. Two golden handled, beautifully decorated scimitars rested on his back in their scabbards. They were the Swords of Ynephus, one of the most magical items known to this part of the Edoc'sil nation. Around his neck rested a silver chain, on it was a single emblem, a black circle with a snake crossing through it and wrapping around at ridiculously beautiful angles. This was an object of pure power, one more powerful than any human around for a hundred miles could understand, and almost no human could use, let alone master. Rhett's thoughts were interrupted when a host of mounted men came bearing down on him. They pulled up just short of him.

            "What is the meaning of this? You wear the items, and where your father? Surely he could not be dead the reports must have been wrong. We brought our best men though, just in case. Seventy of the best men in the alliance!" The lead horseman explained.

            "Greetings to you to Gandala, but it is not the way to treat the head Lord of the Alliance of the Fjords." Rhett replied coldly. Galanda and his fellow horsemen's mouths dropped open in shock. "Come we have much to discuss" Was all Rhett said before walking towards the capital building.

            Rhett stopped his horse at the edge of the mighty rain forest; inside they would find the largest entrance to the cave complex his father had been exploring. This rain forest was a mystical place, full of dangers and beauty's beyond which many would ever experience. Rhett took a deep breath and led his party of 120 mounted men out of the dry sunshine and into damp shadows of the trees.



            Camp had been set in a clearing, they had only a few more hours of journey until they reached the entrance and the town leaders wanted all of the troops well rested before entering the apparently deadly caves. Rhett couldn't sleep, he hadn't since his father's death three days ago, and he was the last of his family, the last in a long line of royal blood. He had no desire to be in command of this force. He had no desire to be a lord or a king. He wanted to travel the world and make it a better place. He was an expert swordsman, and fair with a bow. He could defeat any man in a sparring match and dispatch any enemy. He could also experience the effects of the Targ'mel Medallion. When he was wearing it, his senses were heightened, he could move faster, and possessed more strength.

            He was brought out of his thoughts by a soft gurgle in the night, like the bubbling of a stream, only there had been no sound earlier. He quietly and quickly moved across the grass towards were he had thought he heard the sound, and he encountered no sentry, only a bloodstain on the forest floor.

            "TO ARMS!!! TO ARMS!!! We are under attack!!" He was quick to yell as quickly as possible. His scimitars were in his hands before he has finished his call. They were in front of him just in time slash the throat of a leaping beast. It was a huge wolf-like being with large glowing red pupil less eyes. Suddenly he was surrounded by them.

Two swiped at his knees but both found that there limbs were no longer attached. He easily displaced them with two quick strokes of his magical weapons. The doglike creatures started to encircle him, recognizing him as a powerful foe and moved to take him on all at once.

Rhett dared a quick glance behind him into the camp. The warriors were holding their own against the beasts, a few had fallen, but most were now awake and pushing them back trying to form a defensive circle. He noticed that their tactics were not working well against the short but stocky creatures. They were trained in human warfare and were not able to get past the defences of the things with their quick stabs at them with swords and spears. The archers were faring the best, every carefully aimed shot took down one more enemy. He saw a small host of men rushing towards him, his personal bodyguard come to help protect him, and they would be much help preventing the creatures from circling.

He turned his eyes back to his situation and realized that he was in dire trouble. The dogs had moved faster than he thought and were now surrounding him 360 degrees. He crouched down low in a fighting stance and held his scimitars in a defensive position. The dogs leaped. Rhett drew his first blade up over his head slitting the throat of the closest enemy and whipped his other around behind him injuring three others. One landed on his back but was impaled on his specially spiked armour before sliding off. Rhett had expected the extra weight and used it to push him and his twirling scimitars forward and out through the circle. On the way out, he killed four more.

            Rhett spun to face the host of dogs now a wriggling mass of confusion, and impaled two more of the charging things through the chest. His bodyguard charged into the group. "Slice at them diagonally!" he cried as he turned to face another group of enemy's.

Rhett now when on offence, he charged into a mass of twenty creatures. His blades where whirling, glowing purple interments of death, each stroke brought down another, or two, or three enemy's. He was in a dance, a dance of destruction. His were blades a blur, only visible by the dark purple streaks they left behind them as the cut through the air. His bodyguard finished off the remaining fiends in their group and stood to watch the display in awe. In less than fifty seconds every beast was dead.

The sound of fighting died down in the camp. The medics started to tend to the wounded, and remove the dead, while the men tried to re-establish order and salvage some of their damaged supplies. Rhett stood in place looking at the fiery weapons in his hands. He heard a noise from in the forest to his left.  He instinctively spun to face the wall of trees.

Out of the gloom came two of the most imposing beasts Rhett had ever seen. Their upper body was that of a fur covered humanoid with four arms and two heads, the lower body was that of a huge six-legged spider. Two of the arms were long and shelled, coming to an end in graspers that consisted of three needle sharp pincers, every one of them dripping with venom. The other two arms were that of a huge human, they were bursting with muscles and each carried a huge sword. The legs were all shelled in hard natural armour each coming to an end at a blunt point. The upper body was also armoured, but with metal that had been forged and shaped. It was a metal unlike any the young man had seen, it glittered in the sunlight in a thousand different colors. Oh yes, and the monsters were each eleven feet tall.

The beasts charged, one into the encampment, the other straight for Rhett, expecting him to be an easy target. This was not the case. Rhett leaped forward headed toward one of the legs hoping that if he took of enough it would at least hinder the creature. A great sword came down to meet him; Rhett easily parried it and continued his press towards the legs. Another sword came across, this time with more speed and on a more difficult angle. The man ducked and rolled out of the way coming up to meet a sharp three pronged pincer with one of his swords, while the other lashed out at a now near leg. The pincer lost two of its three fingers, while the leg was severed at one of its many joints.

The spider-thing screamed in rage and pain, and was thrown forward at the loss of one of its front legs. Rhett went to lash out at another nearby leg but was slammed into by the flat end of a sword. He was knocked to the ground and now had to roll back and forth to avoid the scrambling things legs. Finally he saw an opening and sliced across with his weapons severing another leg and allowing him to regain his footing. The creature stumbled back, again putting him in range of the deadly arms. He deflected two, then four heavy sword blows, each time he was amazed at the strength in the arms.

Suddenly both of the other coiled arms snapped out at him he deftly sliced one off at two different places but the other landed a sharp hit slicing through his shoulder plate as if it were nothing but paper. The singer was only in him for half a second but it was enough to inject enough poison to kill one hundred men his size within minutes, but Rhett still fought on. Again he charged forward underneath the abdomen of the creature, dodging two sword swings on the way. He slashed out with a scimitar and another leg was lost, the creature was not balancing with only three legs, and the bulk of its weight was directly above him.

Rhett sliced four times into the things body then darted out behind it, only to curve back and take out another leg this time he reduced it to a stump. That was all that was needed for the creature toppled. Rhett thought the Battle was over and let his blades fall to his sides. He was wrong. As the thing fell it twisted to again face him. Its two huge blades reaching out to catch a piece of the man, even if it was only a tiny bit it needed to draw blood. Rhett got a single scimitar up in time to knock away one of the huge swords, but the other made contact with his left arm slicing it open.

Both the swords buried themselves deep into the forest floor, allowing the man to use his one good arm and chop them off at the wrist. The single fingered pincer arm again stabbed out at him but he dispatched it with a quick flick of his wrist. He ran up to the things human like body, and stabbed it through the chest. It sneered at him and said in a deep, harsh voice. "More will come." Then he severed the head.

   Out of the original 120 soldiers only 90 were available to continue. Thirteen had been killed in the fighting most of them by the spider-beast. Fourteen more had been wounded badly enough that they could not continue fighting. The injured men and a small host of guards traveled back home to raise the entire army of the alliance, Rhett had underestimated their enemy's, and it had cost them dearly. Throughout the next couple of days, Rhett's elite force scouted the five different entrances to the caves.

Their tactics had changed, instead of rushing into the caves and slaughtering everything in their path, they were going to set up multiple outposts in the rainforests and prepare defences. This hadn't seemed like a difficult thing to do when they had thought there only three entrances, but now they had discovered two more. They sent out more messengers to request military support from other neighbouring towns, and a large number of skilled tradesmen (to construct the fortifications).

SIX MONTHS LATER...

Since the first few skirmishes in the war between the group of town and the unknown enemy nation, much had changed. Clearings had been made in the forest surrounding the entrances to the caves, especially the larger ones. In these huge clearings, watchtowers, barracks, armoury's, smithy's, ballista's and other structures had been built. Along with these structures came stakes pounded into the ground, and small stone walls, and mounds of dirt. Manning these defences were hundreds of troops. This had turned the towns in the Alliance of the Fjord's into military cities that had not been seen since nearly twenty years before.

The large scale defences had only been completed for three weeks but had been working extremely well. The enemy sent wave after wave of monsters against the walls only to have them slaughtered by a cavalry charge or torn to bits by arrows, the most challenging part was being prepared for the different types of monsters, for almost every time it was something new. Another challenge was to remove the dead monsters from the field. The humans ended up just burning them.
            Rhett stood atop one of the large walls in front of the biggest entrance. He was satisfied with the new defences, but knew that they had to find some way to strike back against whoever was summoning the monsters. The only thing Rhett could think of would be sending in a small party to try and scout out where they were. The only problem was that it might be a suicide mission. Most of the monsters seemed to be injured of afraid of the light, for most attacked only under the darkness of night.

Rhett glanced up as a bell rang out through the night. A bell meant an attack. Rhett had not seen battle since their first encounter with the dogs. He let out a bittersweet laugh and ran down the steps to the assembling cavalry below. A stable boy saw him and quickly brought over a horse. He was handed a spear as he mounted the black steed. There was a tense moment as they waited for the last pair of doors to open. All that could be heard was the steady whiz of arrows though the night and the cry's of pain from the beasts. The last door was suddenly swung outwards and the noises were drowned out by the pounding of hooves was the charge started.

They rode out of the door and around the wall that was in front of it. They slammed into the short humanoids on the other side.  They were wielding short swords and wooden shields. Most of them were trampled, while the rest were run through with spears. Rhett noticed that they were experiencing few losses. Then the reinforcements came. Twenty twelve foot tall four armed grey scaled beasts with four arms. On each arm was a blade moulded to the wrist, physically grown into them. They charged into the battle hacking at everything in their way, their allies included. Though the gaps in the fighting black bolts of lightening erupted, tearing through the cavalry and sending them into confusion.

Rhett put his head down and rode hard in attempt to get behind the towering grey beasts they were distracted by waves of arrows hitting them in the face. He was about four feet away when he realized that an axe-hand was coming his way. He quickly tossed his spear towards the thing and dived off his horse to the ground, breaking his fall with a quick roll. He came to his feet behind the thing but was now facing new enemies. Two tell slender beings that looked much like humans except with black hair and dark black skin. Each carried a long slender double edged weapon in one hand and long curved dagger in the other hand.

Rhett quickly pulled his scimitars out, but one had already landed a hit across his chest. The long slender sword left a red line, but it didn't cut deep Rhett was confused because it cut through his armour like it was nothing but didn't cut deep into him. He threw his weapons up in front of him and started a complex routine to fend them off. They were as fast as him and faster but they had no where near the strength he did. He was pushing his defence as far as it would go but they still had each landed multiple hits on him.

Suddenly he switched tactics and let a sword get through to get a shot in at one of them. He sliced the thing across the stomach and left it trying to hold itself together. He turned on the other and went on extreme offensive. His opponent tried in vain to fend him off but he just physically didn't have the strength. After dispatching it, Rhett quickly scanned around for the source of the lightning. Sure enough two other of the same species he had just fought were standing close together throwing lighting bolts into Rhett's troops. Rhett ran toward them planning to cut them down from behind but before he could reach them, they spun around to face him and suddenly he was on his knees looking at his parents. All of his childhood memories were flashing through his head. He lost all of his warrior hardness and suddenly he felt something else. He felt a power surge through him. The medallion necklace was hot around his neck. The two creatures were close to him now, and he lashed out at them. His arms wouldn't respond to his commands but something else would. Two dark purple beams of raw power reached out and blew the two humanoids to pieces. He lost control of the power it was running wild killing the grey scaled things, blowing holes in the ground, exploding through the rock of the cave entrance. Then it stopped, and everything when black.