A Song of Askaldenfirsts and Dragons. Book one: The outlanders (Part I-IV)
Part I: The ghost. Chapter 1: Edelmer

Edelmer woke up in the middle of a field. Nearby, the tops of the rattendr trees rustled in the breeze. The leaves shimmered green and turquoise, sparkling under the glow of two bright stars, Iglara and Silenta. The two luminaries, in eternal pursuit of each other, constantly cruised in orbit. According to the legend of the northerners, they were born by the breath of the Sirridwyn, a goddess and a dragon mother. Twice she threw out giant fireballs, and they, thanks to a powerful explosion, having come into contact by inertia, created the planet Ermir, and then pushed away from each other. From now on, the eternal pursuit of Iglara and Silenta appears in the daytime before the inhabitants of the planet. Iglara is always the first to fall over the horizon, and Silenta runs after her, afraid not to have time to hide…

The drunken northerner did not remember at all how he fell asleep in the field. He was surrounded by stalks of crops. Unlike rattendr leaves, they were beige and did not change color. The light pinched the warrior’s skin, trying to sober him up.

“Hmm, arkhmm, what?” The northerner muttered incoherently, not addressing anyone in particular, and tried to get up, uncertain where he was.

A skilled warrior named Edelmer is a dark-haired man with grey-blue eyes, very large for his race of creatures. He strongly resembled the nordic warriors from the planet Earth, and the other humanoid races inhabiting Ermir resembled Earthlings a lot. Snunorfs are northerners, huge warriors and farmers, landowners, blacksmiths, tough, gigantic, proud and unyielding. Isterses – residents of the south with sand-burned skin, they are from a huge country called Kaushmanashtoon. Isterses were artisans, traders of spices and various fabrics, booksellers, some of them have explosive characters, but among isterses were also skilled warriors and even magicians. The azdairiks are thin with monolids eyes, obsessed with duty and high art, they somehow resembled elves, but was shorter than the elves.

Edelmer headed for his town. Hoogmeerfall is a small northern settlement, simple one-story wooden houses made from solid slinlen logs (very strong trees) were located at a respectful distance from each other. The northerners highly valued their personal space, so they respected the borders of their neighbors, and the small population allowed every wealthy snunorf to have a huge allotment of land. In the center of the town, there was a single two-story building, in which the head, snonungyarl, sat on a wooden throne. But not on this day…

“Something is wrong here,” Edelmer thought as he approached the houses. The silence was not typical of the daytime rhythm of a small town. The northerners had to work constantly to survive. Blacksmiths forged weapons to supply fresh steel to the royal army’s recruits. Residents have long forgotten the taste and smell of war either within the country or at its borders. However, to protect the peace of the snunorfs in the state, there was a permanent royal army named after Snalm Chrisskarson XIV, nicknamed the Calm. Snalm the Calm was a highly skilled diplomat who secured a relatively peaceful decade for his country, Norvinoria.

Edelmer knocked on the door of his friend Thedgar. The house was located second at the entrance to the city. The town itself resembled a village, it was without fortifications, moats, gates and town walls. Hoogmeerfall received the status of a town solely because of the active trade in a certain smoking mixture made from a flower called “Tear of the Dragon”. The mixture had a very pleasant, mild and soothing effect. The plant was cultivated of the outskirts of the town and attempts to grow it elsewhere proved unsuccessful, neither selection nor other methods helped the Tear of the Dragon survive in other conditions, except for the climate of the far north.

Thedgar did not open for a long time. Edelmer looked around and, intently examining the other houses, set off along the road further into the town. Silence bounded the space. The sounds of birds occasionally interrupted the warrior’s anxiety. Edelmer reached his dwelling, and when he opened the door, he saw the usual mess common to some bachelors of the north. Suppressing the urge to fall on the bed and fall asleep, he left the house.

“Hey-whoa-hey,” the warrior’s bass broke the silence. “Is there anyone?”

There was only a silence of houses and a wind... “Tiuw-tiuw-wuit”, answered the vetropheus, a songbird of the north with dazzling plumage. The vetropheus was the size of a warrior’s fist, white, almost blending into the snow in winter, and only its fiery red crest, like a star, burned and attracted attention. Now when summer was in full swing, vetropheuses performed flock dances in the sky, ritual dances that marked the middle of the season. But it is still far from the days when Iglara and Silenta will change their trajectory and the north will be shrouded in autumn fog…

When he returned to Thedgar’s house, he found that the door was bolted from the inside. If at first, the warrior thought that his friend and friend’s wife were fast asleep or not at home, now he was perplexed and began to worry a little. Edelmer sprawled and using all his strength and body weight banged the door with his shoulder. The deadbolt did not give in. So he repeated several times, occasionally kicking the door with his huge leg in a frayed boot. At last, the door loosened at the hinges, and Edelmer broke it open.

Once inside, the warrior did not replace either his friend or his wife, Skergalda. The famous stew of the northerners, the troradkar, was almost all boiled out. Edelmer took it off the stove and, freeing up space on the table, put down a hot pot, and then, taking a spoon, began to eat slowly.

“Everyone’s gone... Strange,” he mused. “It’s still early for the Tears of the Dragon to bloom. Where are they?” Edelmer stood up, went to the small room of storage of armor, shields, swords and other attributes of the northern, and any other fighters, pulled out his friend’s chainmail. He put it on, and taking with him a wineskin of water, dried meat and some scones, he went out and set off along the road leading to the more southern towns of Norvinoria.

The Tears of the Dragon lined up with their little buds in the clearing, like a legion of soldiers awaiting the commander-in-chief’s orders. Slinlen trees with towering sleepless braches and fields of cereals swept before the warrior’s eyes as he walked in thoughtful silence.

Deciding to grab a snack, he sat down on the side of the dusty road. Suddenly a sharp-eared, beautiful and graceful young woman appeared in front of him.

“Where are you going?” She asked him unceremoniously. Her hair flowed smoothly from dark roots to dazzling white tips. The elf’s light green eyes expressed calmness. “Touched by the stars,” was the name given to the arqilunian race by the northerners. Arqilunians was the race of the forest elves. The elf-woman was tall, but Edelmer was taller, many northerners could compete with elves in height.

“I’m going about my business,” the warrior replied reluctantly.

“Going where?” the elf-woman persisted.

“I don’t answer to strangers, especially to arqilunians!” Edelmer answered with slight irritation.

“I’m waiting!” the elf-woman said.

“For what?”

“An answer to my question, obviously.”

“I’ve already answered!”

“No, silly northerner, you didn’t tell me anything about where are you going?”

“Who are you anyway?” Edelmer was surprised by her insistence.

“My name is Arinella LarDarrick, and I’m the wandering knight from the Spotted Forest.”

The snunorfs have always been irritated by both the elves’ politics and some of their strange laws. For example, among the forest elves, it was customary to knight not only men, but also women. The northerners respected their women and had equal rights with them, but chivalry... it was too much for them. However, the snunorf women had the right to serve in the royal army and receive officer ranks.

“All right, elf, so go, wander on.”

“There’s been an unexplained, but very important event,” Arinella said, ignoring his remark, “I suppose that’s why you’re going somewhere, too… I was a guest in the castle in the Järvanhogen. At night I was awakened by a light rustle of trees. When I looked out the window, I noticed that there were no guards at the city gates, which seemed strange to me. Having dressed, I jumped straight out of the window and ran around half of the city. I couldn’t replace a single living thing!”

The warrior, hearing the elf’s short story, relented.

“And I woke up in a field and headed to the town–”

“Why did you wake up in the field? Have you been robbed? You look like a strong warrior and I don’t think anyone would want to mess with you–”

“Let me finish!” the northerner snapped.

Arinella rolled her eyes and barely stifled a laugh. Edelmer frowned at her and continued, “I couldn’t replace anyone in the city, so I searched, but, besides you, I never met any ermirian on my way. If Järvanhogen has the same disappearance problem, then I don’t even know what to think.” Edelmer broke off and fell silent. The fighter’s straight dark hair swayed slightly in the breeze, barely touching his shoulders.

“An ancient prophecy says that when the creatures disappear from the surface of Ermir only the kiss of arqilunian and a snunorf will bring everyone back… Tsshh. Did you hear that?”

“What?” Edelmer looks around.

Arinella instantly ran to the warrior and plucked a hair from his head. The forest elves moved very fast. Here she was, and now she was somewhere else.

The northerner had no time to figure out what had happened. She moved like a shadow, like the wind, and Edelmer could only out of the corner of his eye appreciate the grace of her movements. Suddenly she was beside him again and for some reason closed her eyes, leaning forward. Opening her eyes, she saw blue-grey, soulful and seemingly cold, like a cloudy sky, but such familiar warrior’s eyes... Their lips touched in a sharp, strong and deep kiss. “A brutal northerner so soft,” the thought flashed, “fierce warrior, mighty, majestic, but so soft and warm, so...”

“My name is Edelmer,” the warrior suddenly said, and he caught himself thinking that he was pronouncing words much longer than usual, without haste, as if he wanted the elf-woman to take him for a very serious northerner. “Now we must each go back to our towns, and we’ll replace out if the elven prophecy has worked.”

“So we’ve kissed and now we go our separate ways?” Arinella decided to sit down on the unripe Tears of the dragon and, it seems, was not going to rush somewhere, she did not take her eyes off the snunorf, slightly raising an eyebrow in surprise.

“And what else? You said that a kiss between an elf and a snunorf would help bring everyone back. Umm... If it worked, then you and I would fall back into the routine of daily life... We kissed, it’s not a sign of love,” Edelmer shivered in chainmail, trying not to look at the white snow tips of the girl’s hair.

“Love, what a strong feeling, inexplicable. I don’t know what I feel for you, because I don’t know you, your personality. But since I can’t explain my feelings, then maybe I love you, Edelmer,” Arinella said aloofly as if she were lost in her thoughts.

“What?! We’ve just met, what kind of love can we talk about?”

“About love from the first kiss?” said the elf-woman, as if she was talking to the air, and laughed.

The warrior smiled, and then distracted himself, deciding to outweigh the belt with the scabbard, which adorned the hilt of a huge bastard sword. When he finished, the girl was gone. Turning sharply, he couldn’t replace the silhouette of the fleeing elf with his eyes.

“Where is she? Sirridwyn take her!”

“Arinella!” Edelmer shouted, and his voice was carried away by the wind. “Arinella!” and again the cry faded quickly.

Hearing no answer, the warrior waited a little longer and then decided to go home. Despite his life experience and his sceptical mind, he believed in some prophecies and legends. The road back seemed unbearable. He could not get out of his mind the image of the elf-woman. His mind would not let him concentrate on other thoughts.

“Arinella,” the name slipped from his lips.

When the warrior reached Hoogmeerfall, it became obvious to him that no changes had taken place. The void, frozen in the air, gnawed at the wooden buildings as if the town did not exist. It seemed as if every building was a ghost from the past, as if the ancient snunorf civilization had once originated, once developed, and now disappeared into oblivion.

Seeing his friend’s house and the gaping hole in the place of the broken door, Edelmer froze. “Nothing has changed. Have I lost everyone?! What if Arinella is the only one left alive?” The warrior dropped his scabbard, pulled off his chainmail, took off his greaves and other attributes of protection. Looking at the sword, he hesitated, “It will come in handy” and the warrior grabbed the blade, not wanting to gird it over his shirt.

“Fool!” He exclaimed. “Why didn’t you go to the karkhasharn?!”

Karkhasharn is like an earthly stable. The karkhashes have very much resembled horses. Edelmer went to the karkhasharn. As he approached closer, he heard and saw no sign of life. “All right, I’ll walk again! Fine!” He headed toward the edge of town, slinging over his shoulder the bound groceries and a couple of waterskins, which he had once again borrowed from a friend’s house.

“I will replace you, green-eyed arqilunian!” the warrior said aloud with naive self-confidence. Without expecting it, he began to whistle the melody of the northerners’ folklore. Something inside was tormenting him, but he could not understand why he takes the absence of his neighbors so calmly. Where is his anger, rage, fear?

Silenta remained out of sight, Iglara shining dimly, touching the horizon line with its edge. Determined to go at night, he tried to replace an explanation for the disappearance of the karkhashes.

“But why are the vetropheuses still singing?” Edelmer took one last look at Hoogmeerfall and moved on.