Prologues : The Captain
I remember clearly the day my Father first told me about the incestuous, vile, scheming, greedy, power mad Auguron family, it was my Eighth birthday, October 23, Stonehaven Reckoning 1547. He was fixing a wagon wheel when I asked him :
“Father, why did Great Auntie Susan have to die in a horrible rat hole ?”
He sighed with a heavy melancholy : “Son, your great Aunt Susan was very brave, and very angry. She swore to avenge the death of your grandfather, her brother Seamus, and the horrible things she suffered in the Raid of ’33. The Bloodhammers... they...
they did things you are too young to hear. In 1540, The Elves had suffered terrible losses in the Battle of Shadval that lasted 5 days. The chaos witch Lorenna Saint Noir, wife of Arius Auguron and mother of his two children, was there in the lowest level of the stronghold, standing over the wounded King Thomas Goldlion, and ... struck the fatal blow. Your great grandmother Amber Silverwing watched as Susan swept in on Lorenna’s unprotected side to dispatch our enemy. Lorenna coughed twice, froze, and died. Arius himself burned Susan alive on the spot, and vowed revenge on all of us before he was driven off.”
“Did Lorenna go to hell, Father ? Is Arius going to hell ?”
“Conrad, the Doves of Dawn teach that hell exists in our own mind, and as such, Arius is already in hell. But we will have to trust that Queen Regent Morena Blackraven will make things right here in our world. Now go back inside and get ready for dinner.”
“Yes, Father.”
In 1552, Morena’s son William took the throne, having come of age, and Arius was still out there. I decided the Doves were missing something, and that some far off day, when I was older and stronger, I would become the defender they needed. But first, I had to deal with Eledar the unforgiving. Born on September 6, 1513, SR, the youngest of 6 children in a peasant family, Eledar was left at the Abbey to be fostered one year when many of the crops had failed and he would have starved otherwise. His parents had little choice, but he never forgave them, or anyone else. As he rose within the ranks of the Emerald Order, he made it his mission in life to make others pay for his deprivations as a child. He was stern, faultfinding and even cruel under his veneer of courtesy, protocol and “respect.” Eledar refused my admittance to the Abbey many times, I was rebellious, proud, and worst of all, everyone knew my parents loved me. I persisted, and Eledar was finally overruled by the council. That was only the beginning of my suffering. I still hate Eledar and his memory, and still hate the Augurons with every breath I take. And I cannot say many kind words about Xantir and Lebiced either.
