Chapter 2: Dark Origins and Salty’s Oath
Long before the banners of man fluttered across the fields of Ever’s Vale, the land belonged to the ancient tribes—the wild, unbroken races of stone, river, and fire. Among them, the Orcs reigned supreme, carving their strongholds into the bones of the earth. They lived by the code of the Great Howl: take, conquer, endure. It was not cruelty that drove them, but survival born of a world that showed no mercy.
When men came from beyond the Eastern Seas, clad in strange metals and bearing gods that demanded worship, they claimed the fertile plains and holy forests for their own. Treaties were offered with smiling mouths and sharpened knives, and when the Orcs refused to kneel, their lands were taken by fire and sword. Centuries of bloodshed followed. Now, to the Orc mind, men were not neighbours, but thieves—plunderers who had desecrated their ancestors’ graves. Hatred festered deep, its roots thick as oak and black as pitch.
But something darker yet stirred within the hearts of the Orcish clans. Whispered promises from the Chios demons—those creatures of nightmare—had inflamed the ancient grudge. "Take back what was stolen," the demons hissed. "Rend their towers stone from stone, scatter their kind to the cold winds, and the earth shall be yours again." And so, the Orcs rose—not for plunder alone, but for righteous vengeance, twisted by hellish magic.
Far to the south, on the coastal bluffs overlooking the grey churning sea, a different figure prepared for war.
Sir Salty McTavish was no lord’s son, nor knighted by a king's hand. His title was won on the bloodied fields of Dunmaigh, where he had cleaved the heads of warlords and trolls alike with his mighty battle-axe, Stormcutter. A broad-shouldered, laughing rogue of a man, he wore his battered armour like a second skin, dented and patched from a hundred skirmishes. His hair, sun-bleached and unruly, tumbled around a face more accustomed to grins than grimaces.
Yet today, there was a rare solemnity in Salty’s blue eyes as he tightened the leather straps of his gauntlets. Today, duty called louder than drink or dice.
By the old well at the village’s edge waited Maeve Kilbride, a fiery spirit with hair as red as the dying sun and eyes that sparkled with defiance. She stood with arms folded, a short sword strapped to her belt, stubbornly refusing to say goodbye. Maeve had fought alongside Salty before, in the Skirmishes of Broken Hollow, where her arrows had flown truer than the bards' songs. Their bond was stitched from shared laughter, close shaves, and quiet nights beneath a sky thick with stars.
"You’re a fool to go without me," she said, chin high.
Salty chuckled, resting Stormcutter against his broad shoulder. "And you’re a bigger fool if you think I’d let you near that cesspit of demons and orcs without proper backup. Stay here, Maeve. Guard the village. Guard what we love."
"And who’ll guard you?" she shot back, eyes flashing.
He stepped closer, rough hands cupping her freckled cheeks. "I’ll come back, love. I swear it by every pint I’ve ever owed you."
The moment hung between them—bitter, sweet, and all too short—before the horns sounded from the northern road. The army mustered; the time had come.
With a lingering kiss, rough but tender, Salty turned and mounted his chestnut charger, Thornhoof. As he rode out, Stormcutter raised high, Maeve watched him go, her heart clashing harder than any battlefield.
The ride to Ever’s Vale was long and fraught with portents. Dark clouds rolled over the horizon, lightning tracing the sky with fiery veins. Along the way, Salty met pockets of refugees: farmers fleeing burnt homesteads, merchants dragging broken carts, monks clutching crumbling scrolls of forgotten lore. All spoke of the same horror—of green-skinned hordes marching like locusts, and of monstrous creatures that turned the rivers black with their passing.
Still, Salty rode on, his heart burning with purpose. He was no grand prince or chosen hero; he was a brawler, a rogue, a man made hard by life’s many betrayals. But he had a promise to keep, and a people to defend.
He crested the final hill before the vale, and the sight stole his breath. Before him sprawled two titanic armies: a sea of banners, blades, and battle cries. The ground trembled with the weight of gathering war.
Salty grinned, his axe gleaming under the stormlit sky. "Well now," he muttered to Thornhoof, "looks like it’s time to dance."
Thus began Sir Salty’s march into legend—into a war not only for Ever’s Vale, but for the very soul of the Free Realms themselves.
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