O Relâmpago Vermelho
Ano 22 da Era Otesiana. Primeiro ano das Guerras de Renascimento. Ano da Conquista Guerra! A barreira que protegia a divina cidade de Otesis abaixou. E a luz desafiante de de Gilias, o Farol de Otesis, brilhou para todos os cantos do mundo, alcançando os olhos dos tiranos que o agora recém-formado Drakynium desafia. Em um primeiro ano avassalador, o descomunal e motivado poderio militar do Drakynium formado pelos lendários cavaleiros das Legiões Otesis, os inquebráveis soldados do Exército Otesiano, e os poderosos magos do Magis Solis, marcha para todas as direções da terra, atropelando os poucos inimigos deixados próximos de sua capital Otesis, conquistando um território significativo e crucial dos inimigos do Drakynium em tão pouco tempo. Ainda assim, toda onda, por maior que seja, frequentemente encontra uma rocha ainda maior em seu caminho. Foi isto que o general Roist do Exército Otesiano descobriu em Reg’livar, uma fortaleza a sudoeste de Otesis, que mais poderia ser considerada uma cidade. Uma fortaleza dos Anões da Calamidade, os Sindarklai. Por conta de uma situação única, as forças de Roist, após meses de vitórias ligeiras e avanços contínuos, se encontraram bloqueadas pela singular defesa da fortaleza em seus caminhos. Após duas semanas de diversas tentativas diferentes de anular ou contornar o que os impediam de se aproximar de Reg’livar e conquistá-la, o general Roist, por conselho de seu companheiro de campanha, o goblin e segrarca Aistran, convoca uma pessoa dita ser capaz de abrir as defesas da fortaleza, e tirar essa pedra de seu caminho. Abaixo do céu noturno um Draco Otesis voa em direção ao solo, recuando seu corpo e batendo suas asas para pousar adequadamente. Uma fera majestosa, semelhante aos dragões, contudo menor em tamanho e sem capacidade de fala. Era um draco da legião Brasali, a legião vermelha; isso podia ser percebido em sua coloração que espelhava a legião da qual fazia parte. Esses detalhes muitos podiam notar, mas poucos saberiam reconhecer aquele draco em específico. Chamado apropriadamente de Skycross, ele não era o draco mais rápido apenas da legião Brasali, mas sim de todas as cinco Legiões Otesis. Como de costume, um Draco Otesis é montado por um Cavaleiro Otesis. Skycross, já em solo, se abaixou suavemente para seu cavaleiro desmontá-lo. Ao lado do rosto de seu draco, o cavaleiro o acaricia, como se o agradecesse por mais uma viagem, e Skycross gostava muito. “Chegou mais rápido do que eu esperava,” disse o pequeno goblin parado ali próximo, em pé já algum tempo, esperando eles chegarem. Esse era Aistran, segrarca do 4º segmento da Legião Brasali, os Scarlet Stars. Vestido com a característica armadura vermelha de sua legião, com exceção do elmo, pois eles não estavam em combate, e não havia necessidade para tanto aperto, ainda. No peito da armadura ficava esculpido orgulhosamente o símbolo da legião Brasali, e em ambos os ombros o símbolo dos Scarlet Stars: um círculo com diversas pontas, semelhante a uma estrela e a uma explosão. “Aistran,” disse o cavaleiro que acabara de chegar, feliz em ver o goblin. Ele remove o elmo, revelando um belo rosto élfico. Um sorriso surgiu no rosto de Aistran ao ver seu colega. “É bom te ver, Itrian.” O draco rosnou inocentemente, como se quisesse lembrar que estava ali presente. “Assim como é bom te ver também, Sky,” disse o goblin, e o draco ficou feliz e satisfeito. Itrian deu uns últimos tapinhas antes de entregar Skycross aos cuidadores que logo se aproximaram. “A gente se vê logo, parceiro.” Se separando de seu draco, Itrian foi até Aistran. Como todo elfo, Itrian era alto e bonito. Cabelos loiros, incomumente curtos para sua raça, sempre voltados para trás como grama fina e amarela; aquele cabelo sempre dava a impressão de velocidade para quem quer que olhasse, e não estariam errados. A luz da noite refletia bem em seus olhos azuis claros. Coloração oposta a de sua armadura que, assim como a de Aistran, era vermelha, mostrando que eram cavaleiros Brasali. Em seu peito também carregava o símbolo de sua legião, mas seus ombros eram decorados com asas de anjos formadas por raios, a marca dos Storm Bringers, o 2º segmento de legião Brasali, segmento que Itrian era segrarca, assim como Aistran era para os Scarlet Stars. Segrarcas de seus respectivos segmentos, cada um era líder de um quinto de toda legião, um dos cinco segmentos, e ambos estavam abaixo apenas do legrarca, líder de toda a legião. Mesmo tendo uma aparência adulta, Itrian era jovem, aos olhos de um humano, e praticamente um recém-nascido para um elfo. Entre aqueles dois, Aistran era o mais velho. Velho o bastante para ter visto Itrian ir de uma criança até o elfo que era hoje. E, depois de meses sem se verem, o pequeno verde enxergou Itrian como antigamente. “É bom te ver, garoto,” ele disse, sorrindo. Itrian retribui o gesto. “Fico feliz em vê-lo bem, Aistran.” Itrian tinha quase 1,90m de altura, enquanto Aistran não chegava a 1 metro. Mas foi o elfo que se abaixou até a altura de seu amigo para abraçá-lo. Eles viajaram e lutaram juntos num bando de guerra antes deste bando se tornar a corajosa legião Brasali. Pelo que eles passaram antes de seus nomes serem glorificados, apenas eles e seus outros companheiros de bando sabiam. Guiando Itrian, Aistran caminhou pelo acampamento do exército. Barracas, tendas, fogueiras e muitas vozes de tédio, ansiedade, palpites e piadas. Soldados, magos e cavaleiros Brasali do segmento dos Scarlet Stars, todos estavam presentes no acampamento. Por mais que a armadura vermelha fosse comum naquele local, aqueles que o viam chamavam atenção para Itrian quando ele passava. Olhares de admiração, surpresa, e alguns de desgosto. “Sinto muito por afastá-lo do Storm Bringers, Itrian,” Aistran se desculpou. “Mas eu não teria o incomodado com essa convocação se não fosse preciso.” “Eles não vão perder apenas por uma ausência tão rápida. Além do mais, vai ser bom para Iskor se ocupar,” Tirar um segrarca de seu segmento era algo que geralmente
If I Had Known
If I had known. If I had known then what I know now, that night would have been very different. Worse for that family. Better for me. I remember it well. Everything about our last fight reminded me of that night. The night I met the man who in just over twenty years of war would kill me and destroy what I had built for three centuries. Oh, how I remember it. Things would have been so different. So much better. It was raining that night, but I didn’t get wet. I was waiting at the door of the tiny house after knocking softly and politely. As I waited, I heard quick footsteps and murmurs, as if they were preparing or hiding something before opening the door. I didn’t care. How could I? There was nothing that this family could hide or show me that would surprise me. While I waited for their goodwill and obligation to welcome me into their miserable residence, I distracted myself with the surroundings. The house was located near a sea cliff. The waves crashed against the rocky walls continuously, without stopping. Their sound was only muffled by the rain.Everywhere I looked, except for the ocean, there were irregular fields of short grass, as if that ground were covered by a thin green carpet. Next to the house, a huge tree, whose trunk would still take years to begin to push through its walls. Its crown was even larger, umbelliform in shape, and with its monstrous size, it served as an umbrella for the house in it East side, and, at that moment, for me.I won’t lie, it was a calm land. It brought me tranquility. That’s why I chose that place for Olesis to live. I wanted the person who helped me to live in peace. It was the most I could do for a human like him, even for what he did for me. In a government like mine, gratitude cannot be confused with kindness. The footsteps inside the house slowed. They were both in the room just inside the door in front of me. They seemed to be preparing to let me in, as if they had a choice.I smiled slightly. It felt good to know that my presence had caused such desperate preparation. They were afraid of me, and I liked it. I knew I wouldn’t do them any harm, but the fact that they knew I could, even without reason, and feared me for it amused me. I couldn’t ruin that. They whispered about how they would welcome me. Poor things, if they knew how much I didn’t care. As I waited, the darkness of the night was broken by a flash of lightning that lit up the east. My peripheral vision noticed something, something that hadn’t been there the last time I’d come. I turned my head to the right, and saw it. A swing. Pretty basic, a plank hanging by two rough ropes from one of the branches of the tree. It wasn’t anything special, but it was something different, something new, something that surprised me. I liked it. I was about to start thinking about that swing, it would be the most exciting thing I would do in months, when the door opened, interrupting me.“King Maliris,” Olesis, the father of the family greeted me with a fearful smile as he held the humble door. He looked up to look into my eyes, or where he thought they were. I was hooded and the lack of light outside did not allow the human to see my face.“Hello, Olesis, my friend,” I greeted him calmly. He seemed to tremble a little at the sound of my voice. “I thought you were sleeping. I’m sorry if I woke you.”“No need to apologize,” he said with an evasive voice and look. My apologizing to him bothered him. “We just weren’t expecting your visit today.”“And no one else’s, I imagine,” I said, looking away into the house. Nothing out of the ordinary. “May I come in?”“Of course, I’m sorry,” he said as if my question had awakened him from his fear. “Please, make yourself at home. The house is yours.” That much he could be sure of.He said as he stepped out of the way, still holding the door for me to pass through.“Excuse me,” I said, entering the house with the top of my head scraping the opening.“I’m sorry, King Maliris,” Olesis said, starting to get slightly desperate. If I didn’t stop him, he would start begging on his knees.“It’s okay,” I said, calming him down. “You built your house thinking of yourself and your family, there’s nothing wrong with that. Besides, I’m just a visitor. And visitors, when invited, have no right to complain about the residence that welcomed them.”No one in that family was taller than six feet, and the doorway was almost seven feet wide. My “favorite” children had to duck to get through if they didn’t want to destroy part of the wall that their heads would pass through.I removed my hood, freeing my pointy ears to breathe outside the stifling air. Olesis, after closing the door, quickly approached.“Please let me keep your cloak, King Maliris,” he said, already pulling it away from my body.“Thank you,” I thanked him, while my long, straight orange hair hung down my back. The house was no higher than that floor. The entrance room I was in was both a living room and a kitchen. It would only take me three or four steps to go from one side to the other. Absolutely different from the palaces I lived in. On the other side of the room, which anyone could see directly upon entering the house, was a very dark hallway. There were candles on the walls of the hallway, but they didn’t light them. They limited the light in the house to the entrance hall where I was, as if that were the limit. I didn’t mind. A human
Fire and Rage
Fire and Rage. These were the things that made me admire him. That made me follow him. Our entire career of battles and war was based on these two qualities. They were something we had in common, something that everyone in our segment shared. All the knights of the Vengeful Fires possessed these two qualities, but no one surpassed him in these two aspects, absolutely no one. Few could follow him into the fiery hells that his rage took him. I was one of those few. More than that, I was the first of his allies that his fire had ever wounded. It was the day we met. And our first meeting could not be without Fire and Rage. It was the time of the dragon Gralgor. After his journey of world devastation, all that was left on the continent were the tyrannies that the Beast allowed to exist. As long as they continued to pay tribute and worship to the dragon, he would support them and not destroy all their territories.We were in the territory of one of these tyrants favored by the beast: Maliris, king of the Drani. Of all the cruel rulers who prospered during Gralgor’s reign, Maliris held the largest territory, conquering almost all of southern Eredwyn, where his Drani propagated the supremacist, oppressive and cruel ideology of their king.Dranis are nothing more than elves, with the detail of being descendants of Maliris. At the beginning of his career, Maliris defeated and dominated three elven families. The Airvoline, with dark hair. The Beltif, with blond hair. The Coilav, with red hair. After taking the three families, Maliris left only the women alive. And for 300 years, he multiplied his blood, generating his infamous descendants who would be known as Drani. In the territory of Maliris, one must be very useful to not be an elf and not be enslaved or mistreated. Even among their own race, some Drani reach the level of arrogance to treat other elves with inferiority, simply because they do not have the blood of Maliris in their veins. What really surprised me that night was that some, even with this blood, never let themselves be influenced by the beliefs and teachings of their families and the Drani culture. Only that night, we met two of these precious examples. I was Movrik, a Minotaur from Ramos‘ warband, one of the five warbands that would become the legendary Otesis legions that fought in the long and gigantic Rebirth Wars after the death of the dragon. Like other warbands, we survived by wandering and fighting the tyranny in whatever way we could, which wasn’t much. It was night, a clear sky, with beautiful clouds floating by, but no risk of rain, and the moon’s brightness was not blocked by anything. We were in the Forest of Vergan, one of the few places not dominated by the dragon or its tyrants at that time. We had seen a light in the forest, a campfire. The warband, unnoticed and quick, surrounded the campfire, and then we began to approach, closing the circle. As I got closer, I could see. Two boys. Two elves still children. When the light from their campfire managed to reveal the members of my warband who were approaching, they stood up and armed themselves, with only fists. The caution with which we approached was replaced by a calm and carefree approach coming out of the forest, there was no danger coming from those two. It was only when I got closer that I noticed. Their hair. One redhead and one blond, both with long hair. Dranis, for sure. A redhead Coilav and a blond Beltif, both alone in the most dangerous forest in the world, far from the protection of their families. “What are you doing here, little ones?” one of my packmates asked, triggering our two discoveries. “Playing at camping?” We had already stopped advancing, they were already surrounded. The two young elves were facing me. “Itrian.” The redhead called to the blond, both still alert. “When I go after them, you run away. I doubt these guys will be able to catch you. Okay?” The blond didn’t answer right away. This idea didn’t seem to please him very much. Before I had time to do anything, the redhead ran towards me. I was a Minotaur almost three times his size. The impetuous redhead jumped to punch me, and I held him with one hand. As he struggled, punched and kicked my arm, causing no more pain than flicks, the redhead noticed that my other hand was also extended, holding the blond. “You idiot!” He complained, really irritated. “I told you to run away.The blond tried to keep up with the ferocity with which the redhead tried to free himself, but he couldn’t get close.“You’re crazy if you thought I would abandon you! Crazy, you hear me!” The blond replied, I even liked what came out of his mouth, I loosened my grip on his neck a little. After all, I didn’t hate the Beltif as much as I hated the Coilav.“Look what we have here, Ramos.” I said to the leader of the pack. “What do you think?”Ramos walked past the fire and sat on a cut tree trunk nearby.“You captured them, Movrik.” He said to me, nonchalantly. “What do you think?”I then turned my eyes to the two little ones in my hands. Long hair, one red and one blond. “If you hurt my brother, I’ll kill you,” the redhead said without hesitation.“Brother? But you’re from different families, aren’t you? A Coilav and a Beltif,” I said to the two who were still trying to free themselves. “What were you doing here alone? If you answer honestly, we can use you in a way that doesn’t hurt so much. Come on, answer, little Dranis.” I don’t know how it happened. It just happened. My arm was practically bigger than his body. But that word. That word gave him the