The Netheron Chronicles by Joseph Black (the giving tree read aloud txt) 📕

The great people and events of our past are the things we look up to; we dream of; and they are the things that we immortalize in song, history, and our memories.
But songs are lost . . .
Memories are forgotten . . .
And though history is the thing that brings our people’s greatest points closest to immortality, it too, over the years, fades to legend . . . then legend fades to myth . . . and myth fades to the silence that is found only when something has simply existed for too long – nothing can last forever: nothing.
I abhor the men who would destroy the greatest achievements of others; men who would have all that they have done be forgotten and lost to us of the future . . . yet these men exist.

There was once a kingdom.
Ruled by a wise and powerful king, guarded by the finest army this universe has ever seen, and glorified by the riches that flowed from its borders; Netheron was the jewel of the heavens.
But nothing can last forever.
Wherever there is good, there is always its counterpart: evil.
Lord Madren T’Zayel, Sword of Netheron, First Heir to The Nether Throne, and a warrior who was said to be able to destroy entire legions single handedly; was the pride of the old kings’ heart.
One day Lord Madren rode into the great forest of Dimwalden, and deep within its leafy borders he found something, something that would change our worlds forever . . .
But evil was in that place . . .
Greed seized Madren, and he took the power he had found, claiming it as his own. He was no fool, he knew what it meant, he knew what he held, and he knew what its power could do.
He turned against his father and his brothers and demanded the throne at once; he was denied.
The power in his possession was too much for a man to control; it drove Madren mad. Gathering his followers he desperately attacked the kingdom he had once pled a vow of allegiance to . . .
But his plans were not well laid, and, defeated by his own brother; Madren fled Netheron, to find refuge in the Halavarde Court, the only place where an outcast and traitor can find sanctuary in this universe.
He found kindred spirits in that foul haven he entered . . . men who felt betrayed, yet who were, themselves, the betrayers, men who had been driven mad as he had, men who seethed with resentment as he did, and men who had committed crimes they refused to confess.
Then, one fateful day, the Halavarde king marched to war; never to return . . . suddenly Madren found himself in a powerful position, a great warrior, an experienced politician, and a man who was utterly dedicated in his madness to one cause : revenge.
Seizing his chance, he stepped up, and proclaimed himself King of Halavarde; none could stop him.
Instantly, he began to mobilize the massive Halavarde armies, planning his future war very carefully, making sure he could not lose. And then, without warning, he flung everything he had against the strongholds of his former homeland.
Caught by surprise, the old king and his three remaining sons could do little; they were crushed and forced to fall back into hiding, fighting a losing war against a vastly superior enemy.
And then Madren made his first mistake as king.
He attacked Arreland; at that time only a small, weak state of farmers and herdsmen; he crushed their small army with ease.
Then, attempting to beat the stubborn people who still held out, refusing to submit, into submission, he ordered one out of every five people on Arreland be beheaded at his personal orders.
There arose out of the quick, desperate battle that followed the greatest king that this universe has yet seen, Jaden Clasheron, a man who had had his only child murdered by the Halavarde tyrant.
And he brought the war to an entire new level.
Gathering a small army of vengeful farmers and herders, all that was left of his people; he crushed the Halavarde army so quickly and effectively he made it seem easy. His men were driven, not by lust and greed as their enemies were, but by revenge, deadly, boiling hatred, and a hunger for Halavarde blood.
Under their leader, nothing could stop them.
But Clasheron didn’t stop there, pressing on; he freed Netheron, beating the Halavardes back to their very own borders, and was proclaimed King of Netheron and Arreland by the exultant peoples.
It was found shortly after that the old King of Netheron and all three of his sons had disappeared into the chaos brought on by the short, savage war. The open spaces for kings in both lands intrigued Clasheron and he accepted the offers, planning to return the throne of Netheron to its rightful heirs should they ever return. He then became the most powerful king in the universe, with more lands and resources than Halavarde, though only a slightly superior army.

But, unknown to all; the old king of Netheron had found something on a battlefield only a few days after his kingdom fell to his own son. He was not to know, at the time, that it was the very same power that Madren had found all those years before. . .
He took it with him, claiming it as Madren had.
Madren quickly found that he had lost it, and searched desperately for it, praying it didn’t come into Clasherons hands, he quickly found that his father had it, and sent assassins to kill him. The assassins succeeded in their mission, but their success was short lived, for they found that one of the old kings guards had had a few moments with the king before he had died, and now both the guard and the power where gone . . .
Bitter and angry (And assuming that Clasheron had taken the power he had found), Madren swore to obliterate Clasherons line, take back the throne that was rightfully his, find his power, then use it to return peace to the universe . . .
But it would take more than an oath to take down the Arrel Empire.

Dimwalden Forest, Northern Caraca, Netheron:
A late autumn breeze wafted through the trees, loosing clouds of orange, yellow, and brown leaves from their holds, leaving them to flutter down between the trunks of the massive oaks, maples, aspen, and birch that made up the forest, and finally come to rest on the silent forest floor.
Tauren Netharu gazed up from the small, rocky forest stream he knelt by, scanning the dark forest about him with a hunter’s eye for his prey. A waft of the breeze swept down from the towering treetops, having made it through the dense foliage, ruffled his light brown hair and then wafted away into the forest behind him. His blue eyes, sharp and careful, snapped down to the small print in the soft mud by the creek, the deer he was tracking was close, he knew, for the mud it had stirred up in taking its drink had yet to be swept down the stream.
Slowly, with infinite care not to make any noise, he reached over to the side, and picked up his bow from where he had set it on the rocks. Carefully lifting an arrow from the quiver at his belt, he laid its maple shaft onto the aspen bow. He stood slowly, gazing intently at the spot in the underbrush on the other side of the creek where he was certain he had seen the movement, slowly he tensed the bowstring, then, smoothly, without a single moment of hesitation leaped forward, vaulted off a rock and across the stream, landing with complete silence right behind the tree where he knew the deer was resting.
He took a deep breath, it would not do to alert his prey to his presence and lose his only chance for that day, he needed this meat desperately, today was recruiting day for the Arrel army, and while chances were slim that he would be recruited this year, he had to be ready for any eventuality, and if his grandfather didn’t have enough money to stay alive for the next two years before Tauren got back from the allotted service period, then he would be terribly hard pressed to feed himself.
It wasn’t that Edrin Netharu was a weak old man, quite the contrary, he was fit, strong, and healthy, never having been able to quite loose his warriors touch that he had gained over his years of service in the Arrel army, but the people of the area didn’t trust him, indeed, they feared him, and though that was a good thing in the old man’s eyes, it was a huge hindrance in for him in trying to find some employment, and living off the land as Tauren did was ‘ dishonorable for a warrior ‘ in his opinion. An opinion Tauren was vehemently opposed to.
Tauren shook his head, clearing his mind of all thought, not wanting to argue with himself the fine points of his grandfather’s philosophy at the moment. That would never do. Slowly he took a deep breath, and then, in a single movement, spun out from behind the tree, pulling the string back to his ear and loosing in a single movement.
It was a shot that bordered on instinctive, he had guessed where the massive buck would be lying and the moment the arrow had begun its deadly flight, he knew that he had guessed correctly.