Ashes into Oaths
The morning mist clung to the earth like breath held too long.
Taranis stood barefoot in the frost-hardened dirt, his cloak wrapped tightly around his shoulders. Before him, the children the eleven pulled from the pit stood in an uneven line. Some shivered. One held a stick like a sword. Another clenched it like a club.
“Not to hurt,” Taranis said. His voice was calm but carried weight. “To protect.”
He walked along the line, placing his hand gently on each child’s shoulder. Their eyes were wide. Some still flinched. But none ran.
Boldolph sat at Taranis’s right, silent and unmoving, a guardian of the moment. Morrigan circled the clearing with the patience of a winter wind, occasionally brushing a child’s ankle with her tail when their stance faltered.
Solaris stood at the edge of the clearing, arms folded. He watched Taranis with an unreadable expression.
“They’re too small,” he said quietly.
Taranis turned.
“So was I,” he replied.
He took a staff from the ground and twirled it with precision, the end cutting the air in a slow arc.
“If we wait for them to grow, it will be too late.”
That evening, the fire burned low. The children huddled close to its warmth, whispering stories they were beginning to remember stories Taranis had told them about the wolves, the fire, the storm.
Solaris sat apart from them, alone with the thoughts that had haunted him for weeks.
He rose when all were asleep. He moved through the shadows, past the bones of old tents and the ghosts of gallows, until he reached the western tree line.
From inside his tunic, he pulled a strip of black cloth, worn thin and embroidered with a single red claw.
He tied it to a crooked branch. Then he whispered.
“Tell them the storm is coming.”
His voice cracked.
“Tell them… it’s Taranis.”
He turned, vanishing back into the mist.
It happened at dawn.
Taranis led a scouting party through the ashwoods Boldolph at his side, two scouts ahead, three boys from the training ring carrying supplies. The fog was thick, the silence heavier than snow.
They never saw the first spear.
It took one of the scouts through the chest. Another cried out and was silenced. The boys ran or tried to but two were taken by horsemen bearing the sigil of the Black Claw.
Taranis fought like a storm obsidian pendant flashing in the smoke, staff and blade spinning but by the time the sun broke the treetops, four were dead, two missing, and the forest was soaked in blood.
He returned on foot, armour torn, a wound above his eye leaking down his face.
Grael met him at the gates.
“They were waiting for us,” the warlord said grimly.
Taranis nodded.
“They knew we were coming.”
“Someone told them.”
The circle was cleared at dusk. Warriors formed the ring. The children watched from behind Morrigan’s flank. The fire crackled but did not comfort.
Solaris stood in the centre, unbound. He didn’t run. He didn’t plead.
Taranis entered last, blood still dried in the cracks of his skin.
“You warned them,” he said flatly.
Solaris bowed his head.
“I did.”
“Why?”
“Because they would have killed my children,” Solaris said softly. “I was trying to stop a war.”
Taranis stepped closer, gaze unwavering.
“You started one.”
The words were quiet. Measured. Final.
From a wrapped bundle at his belt, Taranis pulled a collar carved bone, etched with runes. Not the iron of chains. Something older. Something sacred.
“You are not my enemy,” Taranis said. “But you are no longer free.”
“You will serve. You will teach. You will live in the light of what you did and what you chose not to.”
He placed the collar around Solaris’s neck. It locked with a soft click.
Solaris did not resist.
He simply whispered, “Thank you for letting me live.”
Taranis didn’t answer.
Days passed. The air grew colder. But the children trained each dawn, and the wolves stayed close.
Solaris taught them how to cook, how to read the skies, how to find warmth when the earth turned bitter. Taranis taught them how to fight but more than that, how to stand. How to speak without fear. How to remember.
“We were broken,” he told them. “But we are still here.”
A council formed. Not by title. By oath.
Grael stood with arms crossed, nodding at the children now sleeping beside the fire.
Morrigan lay curled with the youngest boy against her ribs.
Boldolph prowled the border like a guardian carved from ash and stone.
Taranis drew three sigils in the dirt.
A flame.
A storm.
A shadow.
“We are not a camp anymore,” he said. “We are Caernath.”
The Seer who had first named him stepped forward, voice wind-carried.
“From fire and chain, the first House is born.”
© 2025 StormborneLore by EL Hewitt. All rights reserved
Further Reading – other stories.
Taranis Early Years:
The Awakening of a Charmed Hero
Born of Flame, Brother of Wolves
Taranis the slave.
Taranis The Wilderness Years Part 3.
The War Years :
The Battle Beneath the Storm.Part 1
Battle Beneath the Storm Part 2
The Rise of The Houses:
StormborneLore 
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