Universes of Imagination™ - Mine

Here is the preface to my sourcebook for my major creation, the Daro—a people with a very ancient history and who have impacted so many places throughout the multiverse. Also attached are a couple of chapters.

…

Markham woke to the sound of howling wolves in the misty grey of dawn, “Those damn Daro and their rituals… I hope they’re worth all the money we’re spending on them.”

Moments later the serjeant-major was barking out orders: “Out of bed, ya laggards!” “Breakfast and then the morning run.” “Move, move, move!” “Today we fight, ya worms, so be sharpening those weapons.”

Carter looked across at Markham, “So d’ya think we have a chance agin the Hordes?”

Markham looked at his neighbour from the Warrentown ward of Draff, “Dunno, but if the plan those foreigners have cooked up works…”

“Mebbe,” was Carter’s only response as he looked down into his bowl of porridge.

Markham, too, looked down at his bowl as he thought about the last couple of months. While tales of the Hordes of Jaerun had been told in tavern and broadsheets for months, it was all so remote until a Horde turned towards Draff!

Perhaps the last major settlement on the continent free of the Hordes since the fall of the Imperium and its capital, Groyar, Draff was a nice enough coastal city. Markham’s ancestors had called it home for generations, but how could they survive?

Only two ungareths large, the Horde still outnumbered Draff’s soldiers by three to one or more. So the city had drafted every ablebodied man and called upon the Mercenaries Guild. Still outnumbered two to one, all the Guild could produce were these legends from the most ancient times, these Daro and their howling at the dawn! Two hundred forty of these ancient legends were costing the city 336lb of gold A DAY.

“Are they worth it?” Markham asked glancing over at the the tent where the four Dari assigned to them were already hard at work.

Jothan looked over in the same direction, somehow they were all thinking the same thought, “If we’re still alive tonight, I reckon we might just have gotten ourselves a bargain.”

One hour before sunset they attacked the Horde for the first time. In front of them were warriors from a single tribe, just as the Daro scouts had said. Each Horde warrior stood seven feet tall in little more than a loincloth and bore wicked looking double axes. But, as planned, Markham and his comrades were all over six feet tall themselves and all were armed and armoured with composite shortbows, javelins and half plate armour, as well as their bastard swords.

The din of arrow flight after arrow flight almost drowned out the ululating cries of the Horde and the horns of the Draff. Then the clash of armies came and, for a moment, the whole world seemed to shudder. Within moments, though, the world faded around Markham and it was hack and slash and slam and duck until, almost missed over the intensity of each passing moment, came the three horn blasts of retreat.

This was it, “Would they follow?” was on the mind of every Draff soldier. A pause… Breathes held… And then the whole tribe surged forward to chase them down.

Suddenly Markham and his neighbours were in the depths of the forest and while the Draff skirted deadfalls and swinging logs, the Horde warriors were being led to their deaths in trap after trap and by volleys of arrows and javelins.

A clearing was reached. The Horde warriors gathered. When suddenly, from the midst of the warriors, magic and fighting erupted.

The Daro unit had allowed itself to be caught up into the middle of the Horde. And now they were wreaking havoc from within…

As the sun slipped below the horizon, the Draff soldiers and three of the four Dari slipped back into the forest, leaving just half the Horde warriors alive—and cowering—in the clearing.

As they gathered for a few hours of rest, Markham discovered that Jothan had also died, but Carter and so many others still lived. “Those Daro can howl like wolves every morning,” Markham thought. “At least I will know we are another day closer to victory!”

...

Clinging to her husband’s arm as they worked their way into the section reserved for veterans, Layna turns to Markham, “Some mornings I still wake up thinking I’ll turn over and you’ll be gone… for ever.”

“Aw, Layna, its been over a year now.”

“I know, still, it was so awful when you were off fighting those nasty Hordes.”

“But I’m home now, Layna, and today we finally have peace.”

“How can you be so sure, love?”

“See those people up there in the middle?”

“They all look like barbarians to me.”

“Well the ones in the middle are the Daro I’ve told you about. The grey-haired woman in front is their ambassador, Harbinger Therunis of the sub-Clan Hurin-Pendragon. She is one of their greatest diplomats and if she says we are now at peace with the Hordes, then I trust her. We’re at peace, Layna, and I’m home and little Markham Jr will be born into a safer world. I’m sure of it.”

At this some of the other veterans and their families, crowding in together to see this historical event, cheered his words. The Daro had won for them the war and now had won for them peace. Sure, other wars might break out in the future, but with the Daro around even that thought couldn’t darken the brightness of this day.

Markham smiled, a little embarrassed but also pleased. The world was changing and the war had opened his eyes wide. Warrentown, even Draff itself, were small ponds in a big world. And there were supposed to be other worlds beyond this one! For someone with ambitions the possibilities seemed endless.

That was another thing for which he thanked the Daro—he, Markham, was now a man with ambitions.