I was a slave among slavers when it began.
I was nothing when the sea took me from them.
I became the figurehead for the greatest Empire to exist since the Dragon Age.
And then I retired in peace, passing on my legacy to my adopted son.
I was born in a small village on a small island in a small part of the world. Nvijer whipped my mother for screaming while she birthed me. Or so I was told later.
I never had a father growing up. The only father I had was whipped to death for having a child. The only discipline I knew was that cat o nine tails, barbed with glass and seastones.
On my home island, men don’t have children. Women are barren, through no fault of their own. The Nvijer that owned us used to jeer that it made us more workable, cutting us once we had hit the age of physical adulthood. We would no longer wish for the comforting touch of a woman, and could therefore work longer hours without falling to our primal urges. I saw a slave once ask, rather cheekily, why our masters never cut themselves to match this grand notion. He no longer had cheeks to speak of when they finally ended the torment.
When I saw the wood drift on shore, I almost missed the opportunity that would make me into the man I became. That lowly piece of driftwood, some piece of scrap leftover from a Nvijer raid on another nearby island (or so I surmise to this day; on that day I believed the Storm God was sending me an olive branch for taking my mother and only friend from me), would shape the rest of mankind for generations.
I swam for days, it seemed, before the current finally graced my burning limbs from their torture. I drifted on that wood all the way into the Elven Grove’s embrace, where the wood elves led by Thalandran nursed me back onto my feet. They spoke foreign blessings upon me, from foreign Gods and foreign lands, but I still wept among them as if they were my brothers and sisters. For three days, I did nothing but weep, until the Archdruid stood me up and spoke the only three words I understood from all the blessings;
“You are free.”
For the Empire I thank Thalandran, Archdruid of the Elven Grove, Speaker of the Furs, Thunderlord, my first friend.
Years passed and I began living in what would become my Empire. My worn hands made me good money on odd jobs, roofing the merchants’ homes or fixing their broken carts. I became Roger, The Unbreaker. I learned the ways of the urchins, trading simple tacks for entire meals. I befriended Sendyll, and through him I began to know the King Azorn.
Nhaonon was not yet the Wraith, nor the Sword, nor the barbed and twisted old man many remember him to be when I met him all those years ago. He was simply Nhaonon, King of Tirithia. Sendyll was in his good graces, and many considered them to be the fastest of friends. They went everywhere together, and no two souls were ever more merged than the souls of the King and the elf who would become the Wraithkiller.
I believe even the Queen Ashari soon became jealous of Sendyll and Nhaonon, going so far as to begin a war to send Sendyll away from her husband’s side (in this I jest, however some historians do find some truth in it. Queen Ashari came from a distant land and war was all she had known. Many seem to agree that this act from his first queen set him on the path of becoming The Wraith we all knew)
I grew in my station from the Unbreaker to the Shatterer in this war with Lerthea, breaking the Nvijer’s hold on the Mouth of the Ancients. The King bestowed upon me the name of Thorne, as I had no family name to hold with my titles. I was then known throughout the Kingdom as Roger Thorne, The Shatterer of the Mouth.
Sendyll did not return from this war to greatness and throes of adulation, but to the beginnings of the end of his fast friend. In Nhaonon the seeds of dissent and darkness had begun to grow, having lost his firstborn child to a magical plague from the north. Sendyll recognized the majic used and was able to point his King’s wrath towards the Dra’Culon, the great shame of the elven race. And indeed the Wrath followed. Nhaonon overtook the Dra’Culon’s great fortress of a castle in a matter of hours, his shining Dragontooth singing in the songs of hot blood and combat. It was here that I found my penchant for times of peace rather than of war. In Nhaonon’s eyes I saw my foil; Nhaonon enjoyed the blood splattered onto his face, even before the Spirit of Revenge had overtaken him in the name of his son. He hated ruling, but conquering had been his first love.
I didn’t blame him for his wroth at the Nightbane elves and their ilk, but I do blame him for what happened next. Leaving their Count alive, Nhaonon slaughtered the entire Dra’Culon family, even the children and unborn before Count Vaad himself. His smiles as the Dragontooth hummed through the bodies, and the muffled screams of the gagged Count still haunt me when I work in the fields.
Truly, there is where the Wraith overtook the man. Unbeknownst to Sendyll and myself, but the majic of the Dra’Culon had tainted our King’s mind, and he would not be satiated before his death (for those reading this manuscript after my passing, know that I do not excuse the King for any of his actions. I myself killed innocent Nightbanes, and was not tainted as the Wraith was. Nhaonon’s choices made him who he became)
I believe the Wraith had always been there, in some form or another. People who knew Nhaonon in his youth say that his combat prowess was next to none. Obviously his achievements proved that. His venture to the dead lands of Aiihm to procure Dragontooth are still fabled to this day (Wraithkiller would have better knowledge of these stories, and if I were able to find him to coerce the tale from his stony lips then I would, as the tale is legendary beyond myth). But never had the King’s bloodlust overshadowed his kindness so largely as from the Night Gate onwards.
At the end of his crusades, when Nhaonon had grown into the twisted husk people still remember, I was still at his side. I was in the throne room when Sendyll learned what had become of Queen Ashari, and of Nhaonon’s newfound tastes for the majics of the Dra’Culon in the North. I was there when the Gift was offered, and saw the smile of the Wraith of the South. Sendyll saw it too, and could no longer call this man friend.
Scholars speak of elves and their quickness, but no accounts can truly reconcile this knowledge with the truth of the eyes. When a man sees an elf such as Sendyll move with his true speed, all battles will suddenly seem foolish (it must be said once more that while I do not praise the Wraith himself, Nhaonon Azorn must have been the greatest combatant of a generation to nearly singlehandedly slay an entire clan of elves at the Night gate, especially majically enhanced ones as the Dra’Culon had become).
The fluidity of his actions was what terrified me. Sendyll drew and let loose one singular arrow before a single man in the room could even lay their hands upon swords. The wooden shaft found its mark. Before he could even react, Nhaonon was stabbed in the heart. His body began to calcify, as the majic was released from his body. Dragontooth fell from the throne, clattering on the fire-marble floor in a cacophony. I was aghast, yet found my own humanity when I saw the tears streaming down the elf’s face. Even a battle hardened man would not be able to resist the tears of such a great warrior over the slaying of his soul brother.
Sendyll was outcast from his wood elf brethren for his taking of Nhaonon. He was given the title Wraithkiller, which many among mankind have taken incorrectly to be a title of accolades rather than condemnation. Thalandran himself banished Sendyll upon learning of Nhaonon’s death.
While I do not understand the Oaths of the Elves in such depth as scholars do (or at least would have you believe they do), I do understand this; nothing was harder for Sendyll Wraithkiller to do than to loose that arrow into the heart of Nhaonon.
In the aftermath I took up my title of Rebuilder, hearkening back to my days on the streets as the Unbreaker. When the Empire was rebuilt and I was hailed as Emperor, I remembered that little piece of wood that had begun my journey into the world of greats.
In the years that followed the establishment of the Empire, I found my love in the libraries underneath Tirithia Nulel. I had never had a formal education before that time, growing up a slave in the Mouth of the Ancients. High elves taught me about Majic and the Legendarium of their people in those libraries (I will admit I tried my hand at mageship but found it too difficult a talent to access for my mind). I was taught the making of the world, the Dragon Age, the coming of the Elves, the landing at Tyrith, even the history of the orcish shamans. It was there that I made my choice of who would inherit my title when I was gone.
I looked at the orphanages I had helped reestablish for my inheritor. It was there that I found my future son. Strong and kind, with a spark of intelligence in his eyes that even my simple eye could see. I raised the boy to be a sword and shield, a defender of my people and of all people’s regardless of their birth or past. Never again would the Empire fall to primogeniture, and the chaotic rule that encompasses that ancient tradition. My son, as his sons will be after him, was castrated once he reached a suitable age, so that he would have no children of his own. Instead, his mind would choose his heir out of kindness, respect, and logic that I had chosen him for. In this way, I hoped to establish an Empire that would outlast any Kings or Queens of the Old World and usher in a New Order to keep the world in peace.
As I sit on my homestead, watching what will likely be my final sunset, I wonder what lays before the Empire as I move on. The Nvijer taught me that a soul is reincarnated many times, and in many forms before birthing anew and becoming a brand new warrior soul. Perhaps my rebirth will be another Emperor. Or perhaps the world will go on, free from my soul when I pass on. I can only hope, however, that this world can forge onward with a brighter future than its past, hopefully in part to that little piece of driftwood all those years ago.