The Gods-War (Prologue)

The gods had come only the year before and the crops were still recovering, it seemed. Most fields lay fallow and what was planted... well, it would have been better to have saved the seeds. Even the grass and weeds, usually so plentiful in the regions west of Splintered Earth, had been shocked by what folk were calling the 'The Gods-War'.1

It was the Year of Falling Fire, doomed by the soothsayers at its inception. People went about their lives as if nothing in the world were different - and nothing was different. Life went on with its mundane chores. The spring was no less beautiful and the rest of the year promised abundance in all things. The people rarely listened to the wizards anyway and the portents of disaster held little sway. It seemed a time of sharing and celebration that had never been seen before in the lands of Kaevaresh, the mightiest kingdom on this side of the mountain range called Splintered Earth.2

In the winter before there had been fewer raids from the lesser races, fewer packs of starving wolves and fewer roaming giants to harry the isolated towns on the fringes of the kingdom. It seemed a time of relative peace had settled on the Kaevaresh. That hard land had always been a trial for the settlers that had risked all to come to a place where they could be one with nature and the land around them.3

Then came The Gods-War. Kaevaresh had been cut off from the rest of the world by a collapsed mountain pass and the ensuing madness that so many people had written off as nature revolting against humanity itself. Not that the disconnection mattered much. Kaevaresh boasted many natural resources and even a few industries after barely two generations of colonization. They had what they needed to survive and only traded with Marmutt and the eastern cities for luxuries that they themselves did not produce. Harder times than had ever been known had fallen on the people of this distant kingdom and they suffered greatly.4

Balorn, the self-proclaimed (but basically powerless) king of Kaevaresh, had withdrawn his meager armies to defend his castle and the surrounding lands. Bands of brigands - usually outcasts from Marmutt and the eastern cities - roamed the roads and were often seen fighting goblins and orcs for the scraps of a waylaid wagon train or caravan. Towns and outposts all over the countryside were beset by the lesser races of goblins, orcs, trolls, bugbears and various other semi-intelligent creatures that were indigenous to the region. The gods had come to Laerness and the people of Kaevaresh bore the brunt of the war.5

It began with a falling star. Streaking across the heavens in a blaze that dimly lit the surrounding land, it chased the setting sun into the west and fell beyond the eyes of even the closest settlers to the mountains. The ground shook with tremors and a great cloud of boiling black smoke poured from the clefts in the Splintered Earth range, darkening the sky in a short time. Night came early to the people of Kaevaresh - a darkness like they nor anyone else had ever seen.6

The next day dawned bright and warm with damp clouds hanging low, stretching all the way to the foot of the range. The people of the closest villages to the mountains woke with trepidation to their gray world, but they went about their lives normally and only glanced toward the mountains occasionally. A few of the braver men set out to see what had caused the uproar.7

None had returned.8

Rangers - fearless woodsmen that protected the forests and colonists alike - were called in to survey the disturbance. They set out individually, as is their way being natural loners, and only one returned. They found him astride his near-dead horse, barely alive himself. He seemed to be unhurt, but when the farmers and trappers that occupied the village dragged him from the beast, he was limp and unresponsive. A look of insanity haunted his eyes and he mumbled garbled words; flinched at unseen blows and laughed at silent jokes. They found him one morning in the midwife’s barn, hanging from the rafters by a length of hay rope. He seemed more at peace in death.9

A week passed and none dared to enter the foothills. Strange sounds could be heard at night and one trapper claimed to have caught a mutated wolf in a snare. The carcass had melted away on the trip back to the village, or so he said. Human hands were where his front paws should have been and his tail was more of a tentacle - naked skin knotted with muscle and as long as his body. The teeth were sharp - every one - and there were four rows of them, but no one believed him. He was written off as a fool... until the day the giants attacked.10

The thick haze had remained during the mornings and nights, never lifting and seeming to give off a luminescence of its own. Only after the sun had risen above the tree-studded horizon to the east did the fog raise from the ground. One morning before it had faded enough to see past the village's insignificant walls, howls and deep rumblings could be heard echoing around the homes of the townspeople. The earth shook from the heavy steps of giants, but no one had ever seen more than one giant at a time. The villagers bolted themselves into their houses and awaited what they feared would be their destruction.11

The first wave of attack came as wolves dripping blood-tinged foam from their mouths. They ran with a grace that belied the mutations of their bodies. The hands on their forelegs grabbed and tore at the soft earth outside the fence surrounding the village. They ran in a circle just outside the wall, baying and snapping at one another, driving themselves into a frenzy. The giants - some standing fully three times the height of a man - danced and capered about the fields, trampling the crops and roaring laughter at what their simple minds saw as a grand game. One by one the wolves reared and grasped the top of the wall, pulling themselves over and hurling through the streets, slashing and grasping at anyone they encountered. Men protected their families as well as they could using what weapons were at hand. Some had swords but not enough skill to use them effectively. Others took up spears, clubs, pitchforks, rakes and other makeshift arms. They actually held off the worst of the assault long enough for the women and children to secure themselves in the huts and mud houses that made up the dwellings of the villagers. But the giants had yet to join the fray.12

The screams and death-cries from wolf and townsperson alike drew the attention of the giants. They approached slowly, their huge heads grinning gap-toothed and nodding as if enjoying a puppet show. With barely an inconvenience, they stepped over the wall and began to join the chaos in the streets. The settlers had little choice but to barricade themselves into their houses and hope for rescue.13

It never came. Night fell on a destroyed village with no signs of life.