They came in mist, in blood-wrought rage, Across the vale, like beasts uncaged. But we stood where thunder walked, Where dragons soared,
and stormwinds talked.
My blade was not of iron born, But forged in exile, grief, and scorn. Each swing a vow, each cry a flame, Each drop of blood a brother’s name.
The wolves ran silent, swift, and black, With fire and frost upon their track. Boldolph’s howl split sky from bone, While Morrigan’s eyes turned hearts to stone.
And high above, the storm unfurled, Two dragons circled round the world. Pendragon roared with fire’s breath, While Tairneanach sang deathless death.
Lore called the old names from the flame, And Drax, my blood, carved through the shame.
Together we storm’s chosen three Unleashed the wrath no foe flee.
Yet still I asked, mid blade and cry, “Must kin be lost so we rise?” But fate gave silence, not reply And storms don’t pause to question why.
Now all is still. The earth, it weeps. Our fallen sleep in warrior’s sleep. The skies remember what we gave. The Stormborne rose and stormed the grave.
The fire cracked and spat, its glow painting the blood-stained earth in amber and shadow. Smoke curled into the sky, mixing with the iron-rich scent of blood, sweat, and scorched heather. Around the blaze, three brothers sat warriors of old blood, each marked by time, loss, and prophecy.
Taranis sat with his legs folded, sword across his lap. His great frame bent slightly ahead as if burdened by ghosts. At eighteen, he already bore the presence of a myth. His grey eyes, like the storm itself, reflected both silence and fury. He had not returned as a boy. He had returned as legend.
Beside him sat Drax, once the fiercest of the elder siblings. His frame scarred but unbowed, his voice deeper and darker than memory allowed. Across from them was Lore, the quietest of the three thinner. More thoughtful his staff carved with runes from the old tongue. His breath rose in the chill air like whispered scripture.
Drax poked the fire absently with a stick.
“Draven went missing,” he said finally, breaking the silence. “So did Rayne. Last we heard, a group of blackclaw warriors was seen not far from their camp. We hope they’re still alive.”
Taranis looked up sharply. “And Father?”
“Fever and war,” Drax answered, voice low. “Three winters past. But he saw the sky darken before he died. He knew the storm was waking. He knew you would return.”
Taranis stared into the fire, jaw clenched. “He died thinking I was a curse.”
Lore leaned ahead. “He died knowing you were the key. He just didn’t live long enough to see the lock.”
The wind passed softly through the broken trees around them, carrying the scent of rain and ash. The brothers sat in silence for a while longer. No one had the heart to speak of the others they’d buried. Too many names. Too few fires.
Drax rose slowly and raised his drinking horn to the stars.
“Now we step into a new age,” he said. “Brothers bow to the true leader of the Stormborne clan.”
Taranis blinked. “What?”
“You’re the High Warlord now,” Lore said, smiling faintly. “I stay the Flame keeper. Drax… he commands the Blood bound. These aren’t boasts. They’re burdens.”
Taranis stood, slowly, as if weighed down by every step. The firelight cast monstrous shadows behind him.
“Is there anyone left?” he asked.
Drax nodded. “Some. Hiding in the Wychbury caverns. Scattered through the old marshes. A few loyal to the name. Most think we’re dead.”
Lore lifted his staff and traced the air. Sparks flickered from the fire. “You carry the name now. You carry us all.”
Taranis exhaled. “Fights are breaking out around us. Tribes testing borders. Raiders from across the sea. This wasn’t my first battle since exile.”
Drax frowned. “What do you mean?”
Taranis smirked. “Did you ever hear of the boy who walked out of a siege. Leaving only one man alive to tell the tale?”
Lore narrowed his eyes. “That was you?”
“I was ten,” Taranis said. “Found myself in Pict lands. A village took me in bark bread and bone broth, but they gave freely. Raiders came. Painted in bone ash. Serpent fangs. I stood between them and the fire.”
“And you fought?”
“I didn’t just fight,” Taranis said quietly. “I became something else. They called me ghost. One man I spared to carry the tale. Word of a storm-child spread fast. I moved on before the dead were buried.”
“You fought like a god out there today,” Drax said, his voice softer now. “The storm moved with you. Boldolph and Morrigan at your side. Pendragon and Tairneanach overhead. You were prophecy.”
“I was survival,” Taranis replied. “I fought because I had no choice. The gods didn’t give me power. They gave me fire and asked me to burn for it.”
Lore’s eyes flicked upward. “And burn you did.”
Taranis nodded. “But now… now I need more than fire. I need people. A clan. A home.”
Drax drank deeply from his horn. “Then let’s build one. Three brothers. Three lands. One name.”
Taranis looked between them. “Where?”
“Where we once stood,” Lore said. “But different. You, in the east on the high hills of Malvern, where the sky remembers you. Drax, in the west near the marshes, to guard the old trails. I will hold the centre, near the stone circle. The fire will not die.”
Taranis slowly nodded. “Then we rebuild. Not as children of the stone but as fathers of the bronze.”
Lore smiled. “The Neolithic dies with tonight’s embers. From now, we shape flame and forge blade.”
“We become what they feared we would be,” Drax said. “Stormborne. Eternal.”
Taranis reached out and grasped their arms one brother to each hand. “We lead together.”
The fire roared.
Part II: The Storm Remembers Later, as the night deepened, Taranis sat with his back to a tree. Boldolph rested his head on Taranis’s leg. The great black wolf was still and watchful, his red eyes scanning the shadows. Morrigan curled near the fire, pale as snowfall, her ears twitching at every distant noise.
“Do you think they’re truly gone?” Taranis whispered.
Lore didn’t answer at first. He simply watched the flames. “No one is ever truly gone. Not in our line. Some names survive in flesh. Others in fire.”
“And the enemy?” Drax asked.
“Still out there,” Lore said. “Still watching. The Saxons come. The Romans return. But we… we will be ready.”
Taranis stared into the night. “I never wanted to be leader.”
“That’s exactly why you should be,” Drax said. “Those who crave the crown often destroy the land they wear it on.”
“We carve new paths,” Lore said. “Not in stone. Not in blood. But in memory and meaning.”
Morning light rose over the battlefield. The dead were buried, their names sung into the mist. Taranis, Drax, and Lore stood before the hill where they would build their future.
Three brothers.
Three keeps.
One storm.
“I’ll raise warriors,” Taranis said. “Not just fighters but those who stand for the forgotten.”
“I’ll raise shields,” Drax replied. “Those who know honour and vengeance.”
“I’ll raise stories,” Lore said. “And through them, we will never be lost again.”
Boldolph howled once deep and mournful. Morrigan joined in, her voice carrying across the valley like wind through bone.
Above them, high in the clouds, Pendragon and Tairneanach circled not as beasts of war, but guardians of legend.
And so, the Bronze Age of the Stormborne began. Not with kings or crowns, but around a fire, carved in blood and rebuilt in hope.
The mist churned with the heavy breath of the earth. It was a blanket of silence, thick as the sorrow that weighed on the air. The warriors stood, unsure whether to kneel or fight to greet their kin, or strike at their curse. There had been no warning, no word of Taranis’s return. He had simply appeared the shadows parting to reveal him like a storm-born god.
Taranis stood tall in the heart of them, his broad shoulders cut against the rolling mist. The wolves at his side. Boldolph, his red-eyed companion, a shadow of night itself, prowled silently beside him.
Morrigan, a beautiful white wolf, ever the ghost, her eyes glittering like twin embers. Moved with the grace of wind, barely disturbing the earth beneath her paws.
Above them, the storm was waiting watching. Tairneanach and Pendragon, the dragons, were not of this earth. But they lingered in the skies, their wings beating the air like the rhythm of war itself.
He did not call for battle. He did not raise a spear. He simply let the storm guide his steps. The weight of his presence alone seemed to shift the land. The earth trembling as though it too remembered what the boy now a man had become.
The warriors of his homeland, who had once been his brothers. Now looked upon him with a mixture of awe, fear, and guilt. Lore, his older brother, stood before him, his face shadowed with grief and anger. There was no joy in his eyes, only the harsh weight of lost years and lost family.
“You return, Taranis. But what have you come back to?” Lore’s voice cut through the stillness. There was no warmth in his tone. Only a coldness that ran deep, a layer of resentment that not be overlooked.
Taranis’s voice, nonetheless, was steady as thunder in the distance, resonating with the storm that had followed him for years. “I return for blood,” he said. “Not just for yours, but for mine.”
A wave of motion the clash of steel, the growl of beasts. But it wasn’t just the tribe who sought war. From the far ridge, a war band of strangers approached, their figures shrouded in shadow. They were not just raiders.
These men had come for something more like. They had heard the legends of the boy who had been cast out. The one who had walked through the storm. They had come to test the power of the Stormborne bloodline.
Taranis didn’t wait. He swept ahead, his blade gleaming like the edge of the storm, glowing with fury. Boldolph leapt alongside him, his jaws snapping at the air. A creature of black shadow and red fire, creature of his own making. Morrigan, ever the shadow, darted forward like a streak of vengeance. her white fur glowing as if the moon itself had poured through her.
The first strike landed. Taranis’s blade cut through the flesh of his nearest foe with the ease of wind through the trees. Blood sprayed from the wound, but it wasn’t just mortal men he was fighting. The storm answered him, the air vibrating as if the heavens themselves would break apart.
The Storm Unleashed Taranis fought as though he was the very storm itself. Each swing of his blade cutting through flesh like lightning raking the sky. His movements were fluid, practiced not from years of training, but from something older. He had become the storm, the blade in his hand merely an extension of his fury.
Boldolph was a black shadow beside him. His jaws closing around an enemy’s throat, tearing through flesh like a force of nature. Morrigan struck with the elegance of wind, swift and deadly, cutting through men. As though they were nothing more than smoke in the air.
Her eyes burned with the same fire that danced in Taranis’s chest. Morrigans presence was a reminder of the wildness that had shaped him.
The warriors of the rival tribe faltered under the weight of the storm that followed Taranis. The mist, which had once cloaked them in mystery. As it began to burn away, replaced by a swirling cloud of rage and prophecy. The ground rumbled beneath their feet, the clash of steel mingling with the roar of dragons in the sky.
Above them, the dragons spiraled, their forms flickering in and out of the thunderclouds. Pendragon, the King of Dragons, seemed to grow in size with each heartbeat of battle. His wings tearing through the air like the flaps of fate itself.
Tairneanach, the storm dragon, called down bolts of lightning, sending the enemy scattering in terror. He was not of the world below. But his power filled it with such force that even the mightiest warriors. were little more than ants beneath his gaze.
Lore, still standing firm at the edge of the battlefield, shouted over the chaos, his voice tinged with fear,.
“Taranis! This battle is ours to win, but not with blood alone. The storm has a price.”
Taranis glanced at his brother, the bond between them still intact despite the years of separation. Lore’s face was etched with worry, and Taranis saw the doubt in his eyes. They had fought together once, long ago. But the battlefield was different now, and so were they.
Taranis nodded, raising his sword to the sky. Pendragon roared, and the ground trembled beneath them. The clash of steel and the roar of dragons echoed across the hills as the battle raged on.
The Turning Point Taranis had always fought for survival, but now he fought for something more his legacy. This battle was more than a struggle for land or tribe. It was a struggle for what would stay of the Stormborne name. The tribe, his family, and the ancient bond of blood and storm were all tied to this moment.
Drax, his brother, caught sight of him in the thick of the battle. Their eyes met across the chaos. Drax had once been the fierce, unrelenting warrior, the protector. But now, his eyes were full of something else hesitation.
Taranis fought his way toward him, cutting through the enemy like a force of nature. When he reached Drax, there was a moment of stillness the battlefield paused, the winds held their breath.
“You fight as a man, Taranis,” Drax said, his voice rough with emotion, his sword slick with blood. “But you’ve never known the price of victory.”
Taranis’s eyes flashed with a fire of their own. “Victory isn’t about what you take. It’s about what you give.”
Drax, understanding in that moment what Taranis meant, raised his sword. “Then let us give,” he said, and together they turned. Fighting back to back, cutting through the enemy ranks with a power born of blood, storm, and flame.
The End of the Storm
The battle raged on for what felt like eternity, but slowly, the enemy forces began to break. The storm that had followed Taranis, fierce and untamed, began to recede as the last of the rival warriors fell.
The sky cleared, the clouds parted, and the first rays of sunlight broke through. casting a strange glow over the blood-soaked earth.
Taranis stood midst the chaos, bloodied but unbroken, his sword raised to the heavens. Pendragon and Tairneanach circled above, their forms still haunting the skies as their presence faded with the storm.
Lore and Drax stood beside him, their faces full of silent grief and reluctant pride. The cost had been great, and the blood of their brothers stained the earth beneath them.
But the Stormborne bloodline had endured. Taranis had returned and with him, the legacy of the Stormborne would live on. No longer a whispered legend, but a truth written in blood, storm, and flame.
Beneath the hollow tree he bled, With wolves for kin and stone for bed. The fire was not in hearth or hand It roared within, a storm unmanned.
He trained where no man dared to tread
On roots of yew and rivers red. His blade was bone, his shield was will, His foes were silence, hunger, chill.
Each sunrise found his form anew, A breath of frost, a bruise of blue. He carved his strength on bark and skin, And learned the rage that sleeps within.
He watched the hawk, he stalked the deer.
He danced with ghosts that others fear. His feet grew swift, his arms like oak, His breath break a hunter’s yoke.
No tribe remained to call him son, No elder crowned what he’d become. Yet mountains bowed, and storms would still .
For he had shaped the world by will.
The wolves ran wide, the skies grew torn.
And from the storm, the blade was born. A boy no more. No child of scorn. By fire and shadow… The warrior was born.
Served after illness, childbirth, or exhaustion when the spirit needed warmth.
A nourishing bowl of nettle and hazelnut soup, symbolizing healing and warmth.
Nettles have been used since the Stone Age for medicine and food. High in iron and vitamins, they were one of the first wild greens to appear after winter. Hazelnuts, foraged in autumn and stored carefully, added fat and flavour. Together, they formed a healing brew simple, sacred, and powerful.
This soup was often made by elders or midwives and shared with the tribe’s wounded or recovering members. In StormborneLore, it’s the first meal given to a tribe member returning from exile.
A close-up of crushed hazelnuts surrounded by fresh nettle leaves, essential ingredients for a traditional healing soup.
🧾 Ingredients (Modern Adaptation) Ingredient Qty Est. Cost (UK) Fresh nettle leaves (or spinach) 100g £0.00–£1.00 (free if foraged) Hazelnuts (crushed or ground) 50g £0.50–£1.00 Onion (or wild leek) ½ small £0.10 Water or light stock 500ml ~£0.10 Salt (optional) to taste <£0.05 Oil or fat (optional) 1 tsp £0.05
Estimated total cost: £0.80 – £2.30 (Serves 2 — approx. £0.40–£1.15 per bowl)
Fresh ingredients for a healing nettle soup, including hazelnuts, onion, and green herbs.
Boil water with foraged nettles, leeks, and crushed hazelnuts in a clay pot over fire.
Stir with a carved stick until it thickens.
Serve hot with flatbread or root mash.
Modern method:
Wash nettles (use gloves!) or spinach.
Sauté onion in oil until soft.
Add water/stock, nettles, and crushed hazelnuts.
Simmer 10–15 minutes. Blend for smoothness or serve rustic.
Season lightly. Optional: add oat milk or cream for richness.
📖 Suggested Story Pairing Serve with: “The Fire Within the Child” moments of recovery and resilience.
This is a soup of healing, strength, and memory. One bowl could mark the difference between fading and fighting. One fire-lit meal could carry the spirit through another night.
Tairneanach and Pendragon Spirits of Storm, Fire, and Fate
A vibrant illustration of Tairneanach, the Storm Dragon, embodying the elements of fury and prophecy amidst a colorful backdrop.
The Storm That Watches
They say a great wyrm once roamed Biddulph Moor. A beast of smoke and sky, hunted by men with spears of bronze and fear in their bellies. But no man killed it.
The creature rose into the thunderclouds and vanished, taking the storm with it.
The next day, nothing grew on the moor but blackened heather.
That wyrm became Tairneanach, the Storm Dragon not a creature of fire, but of prophecy. His breath is wind. His scales shimmer like wet slate. He is the first when a child is born under an omen sky. The last to vanish when a soul is cast out unjustly.
“He is not tamed. Not ridden. He chooses.” Whispered in the dreams of outcasts and seers.
He spoke once to Taranis, though none saw him but the moon. And ever since, storms gather when the boy is near.
Pendragon the King of the First Flame.
Before the first stone stood upright, before wolves wore names, there was Pendragon the Flame Father. He does not fly in the sky, but in the bloodline of heroes.
His heart is fire, but his wisdom is older than heat. Some say he shaped the bones of the land. Others say he waits beneath the earth, dreaming.
He is the King of Dragons, but he does not rule — he remembers.
Pendragon comes not in rage, but in reckoning. When a soul is weighed against fate itself, he is the one who tips the scale. He appeared in the old hills beyond Cannock. Curled in flame and sorrow when the first chieftain died protecting a starving tribe. That fire still burns in the soil.
The Blood Oath of the Stormborne It is said the Stormborne line carries both marks:
The Eye of Tairneanach
vision, fury, and unnatural storms
The Flame of Pendragon
mercy, fire, and legacy
Taranis bears both. He is not just watched by dragons he is of them.
Tairneanach: Name derived from Irish/Scottish Gaelic tairneanach meaning “thunder.”
Pendragon: Traditional Welsh/British title, here re-imagined as the Flame Father, not a king by rule but by spirit.
I was the name they would not say, The thirteenth son they gave away. Born too late, with skies in veins, A storm that whispered through their shame.
They blessed the first, they praised the strong, Each brother’s place in tribal song. But I a hush, a trembling glance, A question wrapped in circumstance.
I healed the bird. They saw a curse. They watched me rise, then feared me worse.
A child of feather, flame, and thread A boy who woke what should be dead.
I bore no crown, but bore the cost. Of every death, of every loss. Too small for war, too young for blame, Yet still I walked through fire and name.
Exiled not for deed, but fear. No grave was mine, no cradle near. Yet wolves have eyes where men have blind, And storms remember those they find.
So let the bards forget my face. Let time erase the tribal place. For fire burns but does not beg And storms are born on broken legs.
Cover of ‘The Chronicles of Taranis’ featuring intricate patterns and vibrant colors.
A poem from the whispers of the forest after Taranis saves the she-wolf and her pups.
They say the storm once walked alone, Through fire’s breath and forests blown. A child of exile, ash, and flame, Who bore no crown, yet earned his name.
He found her there the mother torn, Her belly bruised, her breath still warm. The hunters laughed. The kindling caught. But mercy moved where rage was taught.
The wolves rose first with fang and howl. Then he, with eyes that shook the boughs. Through smoke he tore the yew’s black roots, And bore her forth with bloodied boots.
The fire danced. The forest burned. But in the blaze, a legend turned. Three pups were born from soot and sky, And none who watched tell you why.
One bore lightning on its spine, One with eyes of gold, divine. And one was pale as ghostly thread The fire not fled, but burned instead.
Now whisperers call him Storm fire still, The boy who chose not rage but will. Who fed the flame and spared the beast, And from that night, the howls increased.
We saw him first when the moon stood still, A shadow-thing, a shiver, a will. No fur for warmth, no tribe for name, Just eyes of storm and bones of flame.
He crouched beneath the hollow tree, Where roots like fingers held memory. A blade of flint. A soul unmade. Too young for fate. Too old to fade.
We did not howl. We did not stir. We watched, as watchers always were. I bore my scar. He bore his own. Boldolph’s growl was soft as stone.
The forest paused to hear his breath. A child-shaped echo of life and death. No fear in him. No plea. No prayer. Only silence carved from despair.
He did not run. He did not speak. The pact was formed without the weak. A feather laid. A vow not sworn. Yet something old was newly born.
The trees remember. The stones still hum. The storm has teeth. The wild has come. And though we walk on paw and air, We saw the boy. And we were there.
StormborneLore 