He had underestimated the Nitharods size. He had expected a test at first. To see how prepared they were. That is why he ad positioned his troops as he had. Very useful if against a small force but against numbers like he saw at the moment. He didn’t even want to think what would happen. A plan suddenly formed in his head. If he had prepared a defence against relatively small numbers he would have to shorten down their numbers. Although his plan put him at great personal risk he had done tasks similar to it before. This time he would just have to do it about twice as quickly.
He kicked off and Erieth Leaped into the sky. This is what Darien loved, Flying. He giggled gleefully as Erieth suddenly turned making him tilt at the most peculiar angel and then as he drew close to the rear ranks of the Nitharods the prospected of what he really had to do struck home and he went grim. Never before had he have to do a task as daunting as this. He may be not only a great tactician and a blade master such as the world had never seen. He may have the will to bind not only the Reyas to him but also the great dragon Erieth.
He had bound Erieth to his will about two years ago from the land of celandoria where dragons are as common as people. Or at least they were until he came to expect too much of them and took them to war with the Dark Lord. Now they were a dying race. Over those years dragons lost almost half of what they lost in that desperate battle. That is if you can call it a battle. Better to call it a slaughter. The dark lord himself came out to meet the attack with number around him he will never see again. How many minds has the dark lord corrupted? How many people could possibly want to live eternity in a world where the light of day never broke the night. The Dragons charge in that battle was met by the dark lord and shattered. None of the people around the dark lord died. They didn’t do anything at all. It was then that he realized what he lacked. How can you expect to beat the dark lord if the Reyas didn’t support you?
In this battle he knew he could stand. He may lose about three quarters of his army but he will win. He hardly realized he had landed as tactics streamed through his head. Spearmen at the front of the infantry holding their spears down. Wait for the charge and let them run into them. Have the archers in front of the infantry shooting at them until they are about 50 yards away then have them run back and your cavalry charge in. In the confusion you should be able to kill quite a few of the Nitharods before they know what’s happening. Then have the cavalry retreat. The Reyas should then blast them and then retreat. By that time the archers should be in a position to start firing again. Keep going round in a circle like that until you have given as much ground as you can possibly give and then finally have your infantry cut down the rest of the extremely confused shorten downed enemy.
Darien liked tactics like this. Mainly because he was extremely lucky. If anything went wrong whilst you were doing that such as someone fails to retreat then you might as well have not been there and just watch the people die defencelessly. However if they did work then it is amazingly effective. Darien would have ordered his troops to do that but they couldn’t afford to give any ground at all. Just behind this valley. No more than a mile away was the capital city of Kerlothen and if the Nitharods Got remotely close to it they would ransack it and burn it to the ground. Darien could not afford for that to happen. Even though it was only one city it had taken the lead in the defence. There were things there that they could not afford to lose. The battle around him was about to get going.
Erieth had finally landed and his life was about to be put in serious danger. He had to dismount from Erieth if he had any chance of lowering down the enemy number sufficiently. Now he had to really use the art of sword fighting. No matter how he looked at it he could not think about it in any other way. To truly be as skilled as he was you had to be as fluent as you would to be an acrobat. Probably more so. Your blade had to be always moving. Your stance had to be constantly changing. You had to know your sword as well as you knew yourself. To really be skilled you had to plan ahead. To deal only with the present and you wouldn’t get anywhere. The way you moved with the sword was also much like acrobatics. No hard rash movement but to flow like the wind and move with the speed if could to. He took off his armour. Although it was quite light and gave a lot of protection he still couldn’t move the same way as he could with it off. Abruptly he flung himself at the nearest Nitharod. The last fight for survival had begun.
That battle was over quickly, just like fighting duels, there was only that one opponent to worry about, the advantage of the savage ferocity. They would run at him and his army as if they didn’t have any aid at all. The disadvantage being that they fought so viciously, they would rein down blow after blow without a thought to defence. Perhaps they didn’t care about dying, perhaps because they were only creations they had no desires for anything except those imprinted on there minds, one of these, if that thought was true must be the desire to kill for they surely wanted to do that.
His next opponent was cut down just as quickly another fool who ran quicker than the others, Erieth was helping him now rather that just killing them, stopping to many come at him at once, and he was very grateful, the main bulk was moving past him to his line already, it really was annoying that they moved so very quickly, or at least ran so quickly, the speed that they attacked at was no greater than some frenzied warrior.
There attack struck home after his 10th or so kill, They ran straight onto the pikes of his men, You had to treat there charge like a cavalry charge, he knew that now, the speed they ran into you was often enough to kill men, therefore pike were the ideal weapon, stop there charge before they got to you, or at least slow it down, it was a good as impossible to stop it totally. He had instructed his officers to do this and for some reason they moaned. They seemed to moan whenever he gave them instructions.
The rest of the tactics he left to his generals, they often begged for this and he gave it to them more often than not. It saved him a lot of time anyway.
It was time to him to withdraw for now. He forced himself closer and closer to Erieth so that he could get out and eventually managed to clamber atop her as she slowed down enough for him to get on, then with a mighty blast of her wings she took off again. Best to view the battle for a while without getting stuck into them.
The men were fighting with spears now, they looked like one thin line from his position in the sky and they were almost, after meeting the charge they had obviously been ordered to spread across the valley. This made them a thin wall but it looked solid, people were dying in there thousands he noticed on flank that looked particularly frail and quickly went to their aid, he and Erieth were enough to turn the tide in any battle.
He quickly got into the thick of the fighting with his armour on this time and swung heavy strokes against there opponents, not a duel anymore they were tightly packed and an attack could come from anywhere, however he too had allies this time.
The battle ragged and showed no signs of slowing down, it was going well so far, noting too bad had happened and they had caused more than their fair share of dead Nitharods.
As he looked down the line he noticed the other flank was also weakening, he couldn’t help them, he was still needed here so he just had to pray that someone else helped them. They wouldn’t survive long if a flank collapsed but collapse it did, the remainders of the men at the right flank fled for their lives and the Nitharods pursued crying out for blood. It looked terrible, the spearmen couldn’t defend there flanks, It looked terrible until he noticed the cavalry charge, They ploughed deeper and deeper into the mass of nitharods units he could no longer see them, their charged would have slowed by now so they would be sitting ducks to the number of Nitharods around them, cavalry always faulted when the charge had stopped. There was nothing to do but go and save them himself, withdrawing from out the back of the unit he climbed on top of Erieth for the third time today and took off, They seemed to want him to do everything his first stop was to the troops that had fled, he quickly ordered them to go and aid the left flank as he flew over to where he had last seen the cavalry.
Jumping off Erieth as she landed he quickly saw the remainder of that cavalry regiment and ran to their aid. Slaying a few of the Nitharods around them he quickly got them together so that they could withdraw back behind the lines of his troops, a reserve unit had taken the fleeing units place so that it was again a solid line of troops across the valley. Getting Erieth to form a rear guard he forced his way back to his own lines. This was easier than it sounded as the nitharods hadn’t really taken back that land so there were only a few dotted around. He had given Erieth the harder job but he new that she could do it better than anyone else. When he finally reached there lines and the men passed through he looked back to see how Erieth was doing. She was fighting well but they had surrounded her now, she hadn’t allowed any of them to get in their way as they retreated. Some of them had climbed up onto her stabbing at her flesh as she tried to shake them off. He would have ran back to her but he new it was to late so he just watched as she fought on, and slowly lost strength, he just watched as she got pulled to the ground and then cried as she let out a roar and died.
He could do nothing now but pull himself behind the lines and try and pull himself together, Erieth who he loved had died, and he dropped to the floor and wept.
It was a long time before he pulled himself together and then it was rage that sustained him. He would slay them all for killing her. Absolutely every last one. He threw himself back into the front lines and fought as ferociously as his enemy. He took quite a while to get his thought back together.

Sweat stuck his shirt to his back and rolled off his head as water would if he had just pulled his head out of a river. He looked to have done nothing to the numbers of the Nitharods there but he must have slain around 60 of the abominations. He couldn’t have achieved a number like this just through shear swordplay. He had to use an ancient gift of his blood. None of his family had the ability of the reyas until him that he knew of that were still living. The last one in his family able to control ghelamond must have died about five hundred years ago. Ghelamond was the flow of life. Everything living had it in them. Reyas like him could control ghelamond and use it to do some extraordinary things. Unfortunately but obviously using the flow of life tired you. The more you used it the more tired you would become. Whenever you do anything you used ghelamond. That is why after running or fighting you tired yourself out. Walking uses such tiny flows of ghelamond that you wouldn’t notice you were using it. You could get more ghelamond by using it and so the ghelamond learns that you need more and are therefore fitter. There is a limit to how much ghelamond someone can get. Ghelamond is spilt into different waves. Yet all was ghelamond. The limit on ghelamond often meant that a reyas wasn’t a great warrior.
For a reason unknown to him his amount off ghelamond far exceeded that of most people. That was probably partly why he didn’t believe in the idea of ghelamond at all. It was an idea formed by the reyas about five hundred years ago and in his opinion was wrong. He believed that the abilities of the reyas and physical abilities had nothing to do with each other. If you trained hard you would strengthen your muscles. As reyas were more concerned about their own special strength they didn’t train their muscles and so were weaker in that particular area than most. Strength in the power of the reyas was more to do with blood than training. You couldn’t get past a particular point no matter how hard you trained. His attention was thrown back at the battle as he drew close to a Barafier. Another demonic entity just like the nitharods, but these were not only bigger and stronger but quicker as well. He was unsure why the dark lord didn’t make his armies entirely out of them, no army in the world could stop it then.
This was an opponent that wouldn’t be cut down so quickly by his onslaught. If at all. He was more tired than he thought possible and wondered how long it would be until he collapsed. He must face this foe however tired he was. This one could end up killing fifteen of his best men alone. Sparks flew as blade struck blade swords a blur as the deadly combat insured. He had killed Barafier before but he was a lot more tired now than ever before and he could feel himself fading. His own movements became slower and slower. Each swing of his sword drained more of his precious energy. The Barafiers tirade continued with as much ferocity as ever and he could tell he was slowly losing. The dark lord had won and human kind was about to be extinct. Suddenly the Barafier dropped dead as well as all the Nitharod that were still alive. What could be happening? No power could do this. He dropped to his knees as soon as it had finished. What did it matter, they had won and he was still alive. He would remain in bed for the next few days resting but that didn’t matter. The thing everyone considered impossible was done. He had defeated the armies of the night. The dark lord was next. A few days rest and the dark lord would be pulled down.
He could finally see his wife again. He could see his wife again. He collapsed to the floor lying down in the mud staring up at the sky, images floated through his head. He had met his wife 5 years ago before the dark lord had risen to power. Back then he was just coming to power himself. The first day he met Serianda he wore a dark blue shirt laced in gold and black trousers. He had always preferred darker colours then. Now they reminded him too much of the dark lord. He had his brown hair cut very short then as well. It had grown over the years so that the ends now sat either side of his eyes. His green eyes had been full of fury. He imagined that he would have look amazingly good if not for that damned lord Theadric. He was returning to his sleeping chamber from the great hall when suddenly he had a strange feeling someone was following. He ignored it, shrugged it off and entered his room. Abruptly he turned around pulling free his sword. That feeling was there again and this time he was sure someone was there. Looking carefully he saw the fool a battle followed but he couldn’t really remember what happened in it. Just that he got nicked a few times with a poisoned blade before he managed to kill that damned assassin. He even managed to get him to say who sent him before he died. Pathetic man, assassins were supposed to hide everything but not only did he get revealed but he gave away who sent him which an assassin is never supposed to do. Even after torture. He then stormed down, his eyes ablaze with fury and met his future wife. She had chestnut hair and a deathly white face. Not that he could blame her, he had been a mass of walking blood at the time. The poison had got to him then, or better to say was getting to him, his head had felt light and he could barely walk for feeling dizzy. The next he could remember of that day he was lying in a bed with his wife to be looking after him, Theadric had died by his hand but he could remember nothing of the deed.
He had a quick look at the remains of his army, it was quite pitiful what was left, the tattered remains of a few regiments and a few of the reyas, a surprising number of them had died actually seeing as how they normally avoid fighting and run away when the enemy got close. They must have actually got stuck in this time and he was grateful to them for they had saved him a couple of times this day.
None of it mattered now though, he could go back to his cherished memories of his wife
A booming voice broke his peace,
“ Well done Darien you have impressed me as normal”
The sarcasm oozed from his every word
“To think that you would be able to kill such a number of my creations all by yourself”
It seemed that the sarcasm increase in that sentence although he couldn’t see how it could possibly increase from the first
The voice seemed to come from inside his own head
“But I did kill them and now I will kill you”
Darien bellowed
“I have defeated you army as I knew I would and now I am coming after you”
The voice came again booming like usual but this time it was mocking
“So very brave Darien, so very brave you are, to come and face me”
“You are calling me scared when you are afraid to show your face”
“Ah, yes”
Said the voice, this time quietly so that he struggled to hear it, even though it was spoken directly into his mind
“You must forgive me Darien, of course you will want to see the person that kills you”
A figure strode out, clothed all in black and was in front of him in a second.
Darien couldn’t help staring
“What Fool, did you think I would look scary, big and intimidating, perhaps like one of my little creations”
Darien continued to stare, he looked no different from any other person, you wouldn’t be able to pull him out from a crowd.
“Still afraid dark lord, unwilling to meet your rival face to face.”
“I know that this poor soul isn’t you, maybe you will yet be brave enough to come and meet me, but you know that I am the only one in the world with the power to defeat you
“You truly are a fool”
This time it didn’t come from his head but from the man in front of him.
The words said not as surprise but as someone stating something that was really obvious such as the sky is blue
“You don’t even recognise the person you thought you were fighting against for so long”
Darien jumped to his feet and pulled free his sword, the man in front made no effort to stop him
“You have never yet beaten me dark lord, everything you threw at me I have defeated and now I will defeat you”
The man laughed, long and deep, cruel and mocking
“You might want to know the truth now, not even I thought that it would work so well. You think your so mighty never having lost a battle. A great tactician, a master warrior”
He laughed again, as you would laugh at an idiot
“I have never sent anything against you that you weren’t supposed to beat…”
“Don’t lie, you sent huge armies to crush everything in their path and I was the only thing stopping you”
“Did you not notice how easily they died, or sometimes how they died before they could strike you. That was I fool, did you not notice how you have never received more than a scratch in your battles. Even I am surprised how many times it was necessary for me to save you. I didn’t think it was possible for people to be as amazingly dense as you are”
“That was the reyas, I know that they have saved me on occasion but everyone needs some back up”
“ I admit that occasionally it was, but rarely. I have protected you from the moment you started trying to work against me”
“It was always the reyas liar”
Then Darien saw just what the dark lord was trying to do. Trying to stall him and save his own neck, trying to get him to put down his defences so that he could kill him but he wouldn’t let him work. He knew that it was the reyas, well the reyas and Erieth who had served him loyally. Thought of her bought tears back to his eyes, and rage, greater than before, all this talk was a ploy so that he wouldn’t kill him where he stood
“Prepare to die”
Darien yelled as he attacked him with his blade, but he got no further than raising his arms before the dark lord snarled and lashed out
Pain struck Darien, pain that he didn’t know existed, pain at such a level that he would pass out except that something kept him conscious. He wanted to die, wanted to do anything so that the pain would end but he couldn’t
“You will know pain to the very end Darien, everyone who opposed me will know pain but I will start with you”
This was it, this was the end. All his work for nothing.
And thought vanished, got swallowed up by the pain until there was only pain.

A smile grew on his face as he watched Darien roll on the floor, he could hear nothing but the screaming and his own thoughts, His reyas had served him well, loyally finishing off the remains of Darien’s army. He would reward them royally once the world was his, there was nothing left to oppose him when he walked out to claim that which he had all but conquered. Then that would be the end of it all, He had enjoyed this war whilst it lasted but now the end was near.
His little talk with the man in front of him had been fun as well, He could have killed him immediately but where was the fun in that? He had killed his troops just then so that he could have his talk
Looking down he noticed a fire start around his enemy, he started to put it out but then stopped, he will let the man kill himself, it would be a fitting end to it all, him taking his own life as he saw the battle was hopeless, that he had lost finally. The fire grew until it surrounded his body burning everything that remained of Darien. Then it kept growing, this was getting dangerous now and he was forced to stop it,
NOOOO!! Nothing can oppose his power he put more into putting out this fire and more again until every power that he possessed was struggling from keeping the fire from consuming him
The fire grew and kept growing, it scorched the earth with it heat and filled the valley, nothing could escape its power as the valley was filled by an inferno.


The people rejoiced, the world was saved and the dark lord defeated. The cost was high but the world was saved,


well what do you think, what bits need work. what bits need improvement. is there anything that you think should be in there that i have missed out, all thought welcome

especially if they help me improve it

Excellent prologue, Kaithar!

Intense, exciting, but with a nice blend of backstory. The way the story phases between the battle and introducing your world is particularly good, and the ominous encounter at the end intrigues the reader.

Only improvements would be an ending that makes the reader want to continue (a cliffhanger, or a "but it would get worse..." or something), and a good readthrough. You're grammar, punctuation and spelling fall in a few places,

e.g.
- the spearmen couldn’t defend their flanks
- it's sheer, not shear
- there are several commas that could and/or should be replaced with full stops.

Hope that helps, but that was fantastic.

well the bit at the end was supposed to be the people trying to convinve themselves that that was the end, the last was is supposed to be in itallic but that didn't come out in the forum.

i suppose i will have to make that more obvious

and now you've made me read through thhe entire thing again to improve my gramma,

may your awod backfire on you :P

thanks for the comments

erm...thats your spelling, grammar and punctuation, Mr. Batch who cues instead of queuing. :P

Sorry.

Its great Kaithar! Reminds me of Robert Jordan, but in a good way rather than an oh my god you copied or oh my god how many sequels? way :P

Write more.

Now. I command you.

as you command so do i obey.

*runs off thinking that she actually belived him*

come back here, menteur!!
(Thats liar in french, for those of you that are poorly educated)