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  Tales of the Forest War, Book One

  By Nancy E. Dunne

  Copyright © 2019 Nancy E. Dunne

  Cover design by

  All rights reserved.

  Paperback Edition ISBN: 9781072322016

  For Mel, who saw me through the Great Forest, even as the trees burned. And for Brian, who planted the seeds of war and dreamed of dragons. To you two, I owe the world. Ta so very much.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  The Creation of Orana

  The Races of Orana

  Enter the Dragons

  D’Ayna and the Lift

  In the hall of the Frost Dragon

  In the Depths of Ikedria

  Draoch of the Trees

  The First Cleric and the First Caeth

  In the hall of the High King

  Draoch, Captive

  Mother Dragon’s Lament

  D’Ayna and the Dragonkind

  Thalan and Tsarra

  My Cousin Maede

  Draoch, Revisited

  A Plan is Born

  Flight of the Mother Dragon

  Kalinth’s Frosty Reception

  Sephine and Ikara

  In the Hall of the Mountain King

  A Father’s Agreement

  You Can’t Go Home Again

  In Through the Out Door

  A Girl and Her Doll

  Opposites and Enemies

  Best Laid Plans

  The Bond of Family

  My Little General

  The Sacrifices of War

  The Creation of Orana

  The World was alone. She stayed close to her Sun and was warm in his light and cold when he turned from her. She created trees and a blue sky that was mirrored in the blue waters that covered her surface. She blew gentle breath across her surface, causing gentle sways in her grasslands. Her mountains reached for her Sun, just as she did, but often they were dusted with snow when he was far away. Still, she was alone, save the stars and her Moon, who followed her every move.

  One day she had a brilliant idea. The creatures she had made that roamed the earth were not enough for companionship. She needed more. Slowly and carefully, she changed her surface, causing some of the creatures to change along with them. They began to evolve into new creatures that walked upright and communicated with each other…but not with her. The World was still alone. She turned her back on them and their lives were cold and dark. They retreated into caves in her surface and hid, sure that she had abandoned them and in truth, she felt that she had.

  One spring day, as she was contemplating never making the flowers bud on the trees or the grasslands burst into brilliant green, she realized that she was not alone. There was someone else nearby, someone like her, someone trying to communicate with her. “Hello?” she asked tentatively. “Who are you? Where have you been?”

  “I have always been here,” a voice said. It was deeper than hers and for a moment, she thought it was the Sun. “I am your Moon. I have been following you since the beginning but you never acknowledge me. That’s why I have never approached until now.” He sounded very sad and the World felt guilty. “Your Sun is called Exdes, but you would not know that because you have never asked him.”

  “What is your name?”

  There was a long pause and for a moment the World panicked, thinking he had finally abandoned her for good. “Rumerus,” he replied.

  “I am pleased to finally meet you, Rumerus,” she said, and found to her surprise that she actually meant that. She was no longer alone. “My name is…”

  “Orana,” he said, and she felt him smiling. “We all know your name.”

  “All of you? Who else is here besides you and Exdes?”

  She felt him smiling again as he answered. “Well, there is Indarr, protector of justice, and his twin sister Isona, protector of love and harmony. Kildir is the protector of water, and he abides in your oceans. Sephine, whom her children call the All-Mother, is the protector of nature, and she lives in the forests. There are others that are not so…friendly, such as Ikara, the Lord of Hate. His daughter, Eh’soi, carries out his dark wishes on the surface.” He paused a moment, and the World waited, eager to hear more. “Your creations that walk upright, they have left your caves and have spread across your surface, have you noticed?”

  Orana was panicked. Searching herself, she found that he spoke the truth. Her creations had grown and changed and evolved. There were large ones, males and females, with smooth skin and long limbs and strong backs. The males had long hair pulled back at the napes of their necks while the females wore theirs long and flowing, some straight and some gloriously curly. These creatures she called humans, and was happy to see the primitive cities they had built and communities they had formed. They had elected a king, and he had taken a queen. She could not have been more proud. She noticed two beings, similar in shape to the humans but much larger than they, walking amongst the humans. She turned to Rumerus, her expression questioning.

  “Indarr and Isona,” he said, and she felt his warm presence. “Keep looking, there are different ones in every part of your land.” The humans had colonized her grasslands and in the time it took for her to turn back, they had built farms and were growing food and raising animals.

  Orana shifted her gaze to the forests that stood guard between the grasslands and the snow-capped mountains. More of her creatures huddled here and there, smaller ones in the trees and taller ones in a gilded citadel. They had similar willowy features and pointed ears that peeked out from their straight and shiny hair. These she decided would be called elves, and their differences in heights and chosen homes would define them. “Elves,” she whispered as she smiled. One of the taller elves who had a faint glow about her stood in a glade of trees watching the elves intently.

  “Sephine,” Rumerus whispered. “She is the Mother of them all. Her companion, Kildir, is over there in the streams leading to the rivers and oceans. See him?” Orana looked until she noticed him watching Sephine and she smiled and nodded.

  “Who is the small male next to him?” she asked, curiously staring at the male’s long and braided beard and short, stubby arms.

  “Oh, that’s Itar,” Rumerus replied. “God under the Mountain, he is the protector of those not quite ready to leave the caves. Orana looked up toward her mountains and could see others there, peeking out the mouths of the caves and squinting into Exdes’s afternoon light. There were those that looked just like Itar and others that were even smaller.

  “And they are fully formed?” she asked, still unable to stop staring. “They are not young ones, offspring of these before me?”

  Rumerus laughed and Orana found that she enjoyed the sound but that the humans and elves looked up toward the sky, worried. “They are fully formed, Orana,” he said through chuckles. “What will you call them?”

  “The taller ones I shall name dwarf, while the others I shall name gnome. I do hope they will come out of the shadows one day,” she said, frowning a bit, “but I fear that the gnomes may be stepped upon by the others because they are so small.” Something moving caught her eye back near Sephine and she noticed with no small amount of concern that Sephine seemed upset by what she was seeing. The Mother Goddess recoiled from those that approached her, and in a flash of golden light she was gone with Kildir hot on her heels. “What just happened?”

  “Ah, those are Sephine’s failed experiment,” Rumerus said, his voice saddened.

  “What do you mean by this? What experiment?”

  “They chose to live underground,” he said gloomily, “but in doing so they encountered Ikara, Lord of the Underworld and his daughter, Eh’soi.” He paused a long time as Orana looked more closely
at the creatures. They were formed exactly like the shorter of the two elf tribes, but their skin was dark, so blue it was nearly black, and their eyes were red and glowing. “They have evolved without the benefit of Exdes’s sunlight at all, and it has affected their skin and eye color in addition to driving them toward the darkness in other ways.”

  “You mean that they are evil?”

  “They balance out the races that live above ground,” he said.

  “But those that still dwell inside the mountains?”

  “They emerge from time to time, and keep to the ways of the light. Worry not,” he said, and again she could feel his presence more strongly.

  “Are they all aware of each other?” she asked.

  “Aye…well, their deities are aware of one another, and while the races are aware of one another they have trouble communicating with each other,” Rumerus replied. “They do not communicate as we do, speaking into each other’s minds, but instead use their voices.” Orana was puzzled.

  “What does that mean, their voices?”

  “Try it!” Rumerus responded, chuckling. “It means to make sound. Give it a go.”

  Orana thought about what that meant and then tried as hard as she could to make sound. Her oceans made sound, sometimes her winds made sound, so why shouldn’t she? A great, rumbling noise spread across her surface sending the various races scrambling for cover…save one. She had not noticed them before. “Rumerus! What are those magnificent creatures?” she asked, transfixed. When she had made noise, a mountain in the very coldest part of her surface had rumbled and then cracked. Large, winged creatures were crawling out of the opening in the surface, their scales glistening in the light Rumerus cast down on them.

  “The humans have named them dragons, but I do not think that they have ever seen that many. They are the children of one of us, not created by your work at all but by Kaerinth, the Progenitor. She is the mother of all of those you see now, and has until now only come above ground to find food for her many young.” Orana felt that Rumerus was concerned.

  “Is this a bad thing?” she asked, worried.

  “It may be,” he said. “The dragons could go the way of the dark elves, shunning relations with the rest of the races. Or they could live with and among them. Only time will tell, I’m afraid.”

  “But can’t we make sure they live well together?” Orana demanded. “I will not accept this ‘time will tell.’ I do not accept that the dark elves were…what did you call them? A failed experiment?” Her entire surface shook with her emotions, and Rumerus drew as close as he could to try to calm her. “Where is this Kaerinth?”

  “You wish to speak to me?” The voice of the dragon was altogether unexpected. It was female and quite melodious, but Orana could feel the power behind it. She was not sure how to react to this new being. Until now, she had thought herself to be the most powerful being in her consciousness because only she had created life…this dragon put that idea on its ear.

  “Aye, Kaerinth, I am Orana,” she said slowly.

  “I know who you are.”

  “Of course. I wish to know how your young plan to interact with the rest of the races on my surface, now that you have joined them.”

  There was a long pause before Kaerinth responded, but Orana could sense amusement from her. “You mean now that you have forced them to emerge before they were fully grown?” the dragon said, chuckling. “My answer is that I do not know, Orana. Some of them were ready to emerge and become part of your world. Some were not mature enough. I will try to watch over them and keep them in our homeland as long as I can but you of all of us should know how children are.”

  Orana felt Kaerinth withdraw and she turned her attention back to Rumerus. “Can they all speak to me like that?” she asked. She could not decide if she felt defeated or annoyed or just very tired.

  “They can, but most will not,” he said carefully. “They…are respectful of you, some of them to the point of fearing you. But Orana, you must understand, they only know what they have experienced of you, in the storms and the growth of the life on your surface. They will know you as I do. It takes time.”

  “I grow so weary of that statement!” she exclaimed, looking back at her surface and her creations. “Their time moves faster, doesn’t it?” Feeling affirmation from Rumerus, she looked closer. “Some of those creatures that were just on four legs before now seem to be on two. How is that possible? And those, over there,” she said, indicating a deep jungle area, “those still hop about as before but now they are communicating with each other.” She gazed in wonder, listening to their conversations, understanding their various languages…and noticed that they were only communicating with each other in their communities. The races were becoming increasingly isolated from each other.

  The humans seemed the most gregarious, trading and communicating with the other races as they had always done. The elves that dwelled above ground were similar, though they preferred to interact with each other, the tree dwellers visiting the Citadel to bring things to trade. The underground dwelling elves had no interest with their daylight-loving cousins, but they seemed quite interested in the younger, less mature dragons, or drakes. Orana watched in fascinated horror as they kidnapped the drakes from the surface, drawing them underground and enslaving them. She turned away, unable to watch them any longer, and instead focused on a small settlement of strange creatures who were covered in fur like animals but walked upright like the other races.

  “Those are the Qatu,” Rumerus whispered. “It is from the outpouring of magic that came with the birth of the dragons that they were transformed, Orana. They were no more than beasts, roaming the grasslands of your surface, but some of the more curious had left their homeland and drew too close to the mountains, to the cradle of the dragon kind. The magic that was released in that moment transformed the beasts, gave them souls like the other races and caused them to stand upright and begin to form a community.” He paused, sighing deeply. “Because they began as beasts, they do not have the understanding of us that the other races do.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Rumerus seemed sad, suddenly. “Dragons only revere their creator, Kaerinth. They do not see us as anything more than peers.” Orana grew angry. “Now, do not overreact, they do not know anything but their Mother, it is understandable. But the Qatu are different. It is not that they are aware of us and choose to see us as peers. They do not…they are not aware of us at all.”

  “But how? The others understand that we control every part of their lives, and that their…caretakers, if you will, are our liaisons with them,” she asked. “Who do they worship and revere?”

  A smile from Rumerus slipped around her, and she relaxed a bit. “They revere you, Orana, but they do not know you.”

  “But that does not make sense.”

  “They are the most connected to you of all of the races. They know their own history. They know that they have come from the beasts of the forests and grasslands and they know that it was the magic of the eruption that caused them to be.”

  “But they were a by-product of the magic that released the dragons.”

  “No, not completely. It was you, your essence, that escaped as the dragons were born. Orana, the Qatu are your children in a way the other races are not. You created them all, certainly, but you left them to evolve on their own. The Qatu were born of your show of force, your attempt to speak and make sound. You directly caused them to have souls and become…you caused them to become themselves.”

  Orana thought about that for a long time. “My children,” she said softly, smiling. “They will rise to be the leaders of all the races. They will…”

  “Patience, Orana,” Rumerus said. “Our time of direct influence is long past. Look at them, your children. Look at the other races. They have evolved. They are starting to interact more. They will find their own rulers. Watch and see.”

  Orana consented, but she paid special attention to her Qatu. As their civiliza
tion grew, so did her love for them. Their harvests were easy and plentiful, their weather temperate, and their generations grew and became strong and wise. She did not neglect the other races, however, and as civilization spread across her surface she wrapped her arms around all of them, even the dragons, and kept them as safe, warm, and happy as she could. The World was no longer alone.

  The Races of Orana

  In the early days, the races of Orana interacted with each other, but only in times of danger or as required by trade or travel. With the exception of the wood elves, who lived in elaborate cities constructed in the very trees of the Great Forest, and the high elves, who lived in the golden Citadel to the northeast of the tree city, they had no other interaction and remained within their chosen homelands.

  The third race of elves, known as the dark elves, lived in cities that had been dug out of the ground that ran under the Great Forest. It was told in the sacred texts that Ikara, the Master of Hate, lived in the Underworld when not prowling the face of Orana and looking for trouble. The dark elves thought themselves to be the children of Ikara, and therefore believed that their underground dwellings were as close to Ikara’s blackened heart as they could be. They were distrustful of their above-ground dwelling cousins, and avoided the wood elves and high elves as much as possible. Even their languages were different; the wood elves and high elves both spoke Elvish, but the dark elves spoke a dialect of Elvish called D’leesh, and it only barely resembled the language of the other elves.

  Traveling north from the Great Forest, the land flattened out and formed a desert until rising, slowly but steadily, into the foothills and then higher still into the Volcanic Mountains. Those mountains were the birthplace of the dragon race that, according to the same sacrosanct writings, were spoken into existence by Orana herself. They spoke a language that was not shared with any other living thing; when their kind began enslaving and procreating with those of other races unlucky enough to be caught by the giant lizards, those offspring - the dragonkind - spoke a hybrid of the common tongue and that language. They referred to the language of the dragons as Eldyr in their hybrid vernaculars.