Histories of the Homeworld

The Terror Wars, Part Four

28,391-28,899:1 (-21,101)

	The death of a second Deep Terror had roused the Daksah tribes in much the same way as it did when Sarthys and his men took one down.  The sudden buildup of Daksah in the Ashloga Province was correctly suspected to be the starting point for another massive assault, but this time, General Arack would not allow for this to occur.

	He decided, after great consideration, that the only way to cut the Daksah off before they reached Khal’Shye was to take the advice of old General Torish’la.  He and his army would charge head on into the Daksah mass.  But in his resistance to a completely frontal assault, he divided a portion of his army off into an ambush brigade.  Scouts had said that the Daksah were on the move north through the wetlands of mid-Ashloga.  So Arack led his armies straight into the heart of Ashloga.

	The ambush brigade would be first, some 10 miles or so ahead of the main army, and scouts would be ahead of them.  When the scouts gave word, the ambush brigade divided in half along a narrow strip of land rising out of the wetlands.  This one-mile stretch of risen land amongst the marshes was called Tryll Shallow.  Arack awaited the ambush a few miles north.  When the Daksah began passing over the Shallow, the ambush gave way and utter chaos ensued.  

	Arack could hear the assault ahead and issued a hastened march straight in, and once the battle was in sight, he ordered a charge.  The ambush brigade, led by a Tryhlian soldier named Halimus, had almost been completely annihilated by the time the main army hit the Daksah ranks.  But the goal had been accomplished.  The Daksah were flanked and engaged in chaotic combat when they were slammed from the north by a massive assault.  The battle lasted for nearly three hours, but Arack and his forces, heavily battered, were successful in routing the Daksah.  The celebration was a bit premature however.

	Before the sun could set that same day, another Daksah horde swept into the Tryll Shallow area and attacked.  Exhausted from the previous fight, our soldiers fought as best they could, but simply could not sustain the heavy assault.  A massive, unorganized retreat began and the majority of the forces ventured north through the wetlands along Ashloga’s eastern coast.  To the extreme concern of the soldiers, Arack was not with them when they regrouped, and they feared his capture, or death, at the hands of the Daksah horde.

	Without their leader, the various divisions of the army bickered over who would be in command should the Daksah be in pursuit.  Little did they know just how soon they would be forced to make a decision.  The Khal’Shye and Tryhlian armies, now numbering only around 5,000, kept moving up the coastline, attempting to avoid further travel into the wetlands.  After a few days, they reached a monolithic plateau jutting out from the land into the ocean.  Tall as a small mountain, the ground underneath was elevated and dry.  The word in from scouts was that the Daksah were indeed in pursuit and were no more than half a day behind the army, moving fast.  Also, reports came in that several Deep Terrors had been seen moving north just offshore from the Daksah horde, directly toward the army.  Rather than risk being caught in the open or in the wetlands, a unanimous decision was made to entrench within the large rock structure.  The Daksah would be hard pressed to traverse its craggy surfaces, and the hard rock would shield the army, at least a bit, from the aggressions of the Deep Terrors.  They would make their final stand at this place, which they named Sigil Rock.  

	To digress for a moment, much debate has been issued over speculation of what befell Arack at Tryll Shallow, and why he did not accompany the army out.  As one can imagine, there are limitless possibilities as to what actually occurred.  Mundane observations assume that Arack simply fell unconscious at some point during the swamp battle, only to reawaken later and rejoin his men.  However, traditional views seem to lean towards a planned action to get away in order to answer some higher calling.  While Arack left many writings and journals after the Terror Wars, his personal insight and recollections of actual events during those battles are extremely vague, if ever mentioned at all.  He never mentioned, even metaphorically, what happened to him during his second disappearance (his first being after his village was destroyed while he was a child… remember?).  

	The Battle of Sigil Rock has been the subject of many tributes and poems over the years.  Much of it is romanticized and dramatized to points where the actual truth of what happened is obscured.  Very few soldiers walked away from Sigil Rock, when compared to the number that the army had when it marched out of Khal’Shye only days earlier.  To justify the glorifying of this battle though, I will say that those soldiers that fought at Sigil Rock that day exemplified the very essence of what it is to be brave.  

	The exact details are sketchy, at best, and even in the memoirs of the veterans, they all seem to have a sacred place that they held those memories, and would not even commit them to paper.  Nonetheless, enough details have seeped down over time to tell us what happened.

	The Daksah hit the Rock with vicious fortitude and began climbing into the crags.  Slow but determined, the Daksah fought tooth and nail with the soldiers they encountered.  Combating them, the soldiers pushed and hurled rocks down, threw makeshift spears, sliced swords at the creatures from the high ground, and rained arrows directly into the Daksah waves moving onto the rocks.  The Daksah took heavy losses, yet still they pushed.  There were just too many moving at them.  To make matters worse, it seems that no less than three Deep Terrors had surfaced just near the Rock, with anywhere from three or four more swimming offshore.  They pounded and thrashed at the Rock, causing rockslides which killed soldier and Daksah alike.  

	By the nature of reality did Arack appear when defeat seemed inevitable.  The extravagance of his entry has been recorded many ways as well, but they all suggest that Arack appeared in the sky above the Rock and called out to his soldiers within.  They say he “swam in the sky” with a radiance behind him in the shape of great wings.  Whether this is just another children’s tale, I do not know, but it’s one that I like to hold as truth.  They say his eyes “burned with light” and his voice “boomed like thunder”.
	
	“This world is destined to us, my brothers.  We have only to rise up and claim it.  These creatures no longer hold sway over the truth.  They deny the future, and deny their own destiny.  I am the harbinger of that destiny, and we are the deliverers of that future.  Come out from your hidings, my brothers.  We have no more to fear.  We shall dance amongst the evils of the past…”

	It would seem that as his words echoed through the corridors and crags of Sigil Rock, the soldiers gained a feeling of intense confidence and serenity.  Some of them say they heard “music which to dance to” as they charged into the Daksah, feeling invincible as they slaughtered them one by one.  

	The Deep Terrors reached for Arack as he flew, but could not grasp him.  He flew out over them, way out over the sea.  The soldiers ashore watched as the Deep Terrors pursued him.  
He shouted at them.

	“Yes, come… Come and embrace your oblivion…”

The soldiers say they saw the Deep Terrors encircle Arack, which was nothing more than a radiant dot on the horizon.  The Terrors just circled in the water underneath.  Then they saw it, the most horrible and terrifying thing they had ever seen.  The thing Arack had dreamt about arose from the depths… the Terror Lord.  Very swiftly, it breached the waters and seized its mighty hand around the radiance that was Arack and then it submerged.  The Deep Terrors circling dove in upon the undertow.  The men watched helplessly as Arack was pulled under the water.  The water went calm, and the soldiers believed they had witnessed the General’s death.

The water began to illuminate and bubble.  The whole of the ocean, it seemed, began to boil.  And then, a mighty explosion hurled water into the heavens.  The soldiers watching from atop Sigil Rock took cover as the water rained back upon the land and sea alike.  When they arose, Arack stood before them.  They stared at him in deep reverence, almost as a worshiper may look to a god.  Such would be expected, I suppose.  Arack stood before them, his eyes blazing. 

“We have won”

A pulse of radiance shot out from Arack in all directions, passing through each soldier.  The radiance in Arack dissipated a little into each soldier there, and the wings faded from sight.

The Daksah scurried away into the wetlands, now almost completely mindless.  The Deep Terrors and their Master lay dead on the ocean floor.  And our ancestors were free after 10,000 years of fear.  And yet, something did remain that was not present before.  Something had possessed Arack that day, and it had spread into the soldiers on Sigil Rock.

What was that something was only the beginning question in a line of thousands that would come.  The answers to which would change our people forever.