He who feeds the fire, heals the wounded, and watches when others sleep.
“The hearth remembers what the sword forgets.” — Solaris
️
Loyalty Forged in Fire
Once a prisoner of war and former member of the Black Claw clan. Solaris now stands at the heart of Emberhelm. Not as a warrior, though he is one but as its Flame keeper.
Bound by fate and fire to Taranis Stormborne. Solaris is both servant and sage, a man who turned from chains to purpose.
He answers to no tribe but the one that gave him back his name.
Keeper of the Hearth, Bearer of the Flame.
Solaris tends the ancient hearth of Emberhelm. Where fire is not just warmth it is memory, ritual, and shield. He is the first to rise, the last to sleep. The quiet strength behind every campaign, ceremony, and storm-weathered return.
He knows the secret songs that coax flame from damp wood. He prepares meals that bind warriors like kin. He chants the old rites before a journey and the healing incantations after a battle.
They call him Flame keeper. They forget he once fought in the pits.
A Warrior’s Past, A Healer’s Hands
Beneath the linen and ash, Solaris is built like stone. He was trained in combat from childhood both in brutal close quarters and ritual duels. Though now he wields ladles and herbs more than blades. Make no mistake: Solaris can kill as easily as he can cure.
But he chooses mercy. And that, say some, is his greatest strength.
A Father First
Solaris is father to four children, born of hardship and hope. Two serve in the Emberhelm guard. One studies under Lore as a flame-reader. The youngest is said to speak to animals, though Solaris smiles and says nothing when asked.
His love for them is quiet but endless. They are the reason he never leaves Emberhelm’s walls unless the need is dire.
Master of Fire and Flesh
In the temples of the old clans, Solaris learned to read flame patterns. Mix healing salves, and call upon the Ember Breath a rite known to few and respected by all.
His knowledge of ancient remedies is unmatched. Some say he can slow a fever with a whisper. Others, that his fire never burns without reason.
✴️ Known As: The Flame keeper of Emberhelm
He Who Stills the Fire
The Ash-Hearth Watcher
Blood Brother to Taranis
Father of Four Flames
🏠 His Place in the Realm Residence: Emberhelm, Caernath
Allegiance: Taranis Stormborne
Role: Hearth guardian, healer, cook, and flame ritualist
Weapon of Choice (if needed): Iron cooking knife, hooked staff, bare fists
By the time the boy was dragged into the fire-circle, Solaris already knew what the verdict would be.
The child barely ten summers old had stolen from the Emberhelm kitchens three times in as many weeks. This last time, he’d taken smoked venison, enough for three mouths.
It wasn’t a clever theft either; he’d left claw-marks in the ash like some wild cub. They’d found him crouched behind the root cellar with a bone in one hand. His little sister clutched to his side, shaking from fever.
Taranis sat high above, throne of blackened oak behind him, his blade resting point-down in the dirt. His eyes storm Grey and quiet met Solaris’s across the fire.
“Third offence,” the warlord said, not unkindly. “You know the law.”
Solaris bowed his head.
He had known it would come to this.
The fire crackled between them amber light dancing against carved cairnstones. The gathered clan murmured like wind in the pines. Some looked away. Others watched with cold detachment.
From the shadows near the far cairn, Boldolph crouched in wolf-man form, eyes glowing red in the dusk. Morrigan stood beside him, silent and still, her white fur streaked with soot from an earlier hunt. Neither beast moved.
The boy trembled, snot running down his nose. His sister was nowhere in sight.
One of the younger guards bristling with duty dragged the child ahead. “What’s the order, High Warlord?”
Taranis looked not at the boy, but into the flame. “Three thefts. All marked. The hand goes.”
A stillness fell. Not outrage. Not shock. Just a silence.
Solaris stepped ahead.
He didn’t ask permission. He never had.
“My lord,” he said softly, “I speak?”
Taranis’s jaw tightened, but he nodded.
“Come.”
Solaris walked slowly into the circle, his linen tunic soot-streaked, hands calloused from tending both fire and blade. He stopped beside the boy who flinched at his nearness then turned to face Taranis directly.
“You talk of mercy, sir,” Solaris said. “Of giving your people hope. Of forging something better than the clans before us. Yet you would take a child’s hand for hunger?”
“It’s not the first time,” the warlord said.
“No,” Solaris agreed. “It’s the third. Which tells me we failed twice already.”
Murmurs rose again uneasy, uncertain.
Taranis said nothing.
Solaris went on.
“Do you remember when we met, Taranis? You were half-starved. Barefoot. Curled between two wolves like a dying branch in the snow.” His voice cracked, just a little. “You think Morrigan would’ve taken your hand? Or Boldolph watched you bleed?”
Boldolph’s snarl low, thoughtful rumbled through the circle.
“Do not compare me to that child,” Taranis said, but the edge was gone from his voice. “I was cast out by my own blood. He broke a law.”
“So did you,” Solaris said, gently. “You stole from death. You defied exile. You bonded with a dragon.”
The flames snapped high.
Behind them, Lore stepped quietly into the circle’s edge, arms crossed. Drax lingered further back, sharpening his axe with deliberate rhythm.
“The law is clear,” Taranis said, but softer now. “What’s your counsel, Solaris?”
Solaris exhaled.
“The hand stays. Cut his rations. He works the ash pits. But let the sister be seen. She’s burning from within.”
A pause.
Then: “Do we have a healer who treats the children of thieves?”
Solaris gave the barest smile. “We have a Flamekeeper who remembers that fire burns all the same.”
Taranis stood.
He turned to the guards. “The child’s hand stays. Halve his meals for two moons. The sister—tend her.”
“And after that?” the guard asked.
Taranis glanced to Morrigan.
“We watch,” he said.
Later that night, Solaris sat by the embers of the great hearth. The kitchens had long since emptied. The scent of root broth clung to the stones. He stirred a mix of wildfire oil and willow sap in a clay bowl, preparing a balm.
The door creaked. Taranis entered, shoulders still dusted with ash.
“She’ll live,” Solaris said, not looking up. “The girl. The fever broke at dusk.”
“You were right,” Taranis murmured.
“No. I remembered something you forgot.”
He set the bowl down and finally looked up.
“You’re not a tyrant, Taranis. But you are tired. Tired men return to old laws.”
Taranis sat across from him, resting his blade beside the hearth. “They look to me to be strong.”
“Then be strong enough to bend.”
They sat in silence a moment.
Then Taranis said, “What would you have me do? End the slave laws? Free them all?”
Solaris’s eyes softened.
“I’d have you start with one.”
A pause. Fire popped.
“My children,” Solaris said. “You let them stay with me. You feed them better than the others. You trust me with your fire. But still, by law, I am bound. My collar is light, but it is still iron.”
Taranis didn’t speak.
“I do not ask for release,” Solaris said. “I ask for meaning. If I am to be your Flamekeeper, let it not be as your property. Let it be as your kin.”
Taranis rose slowly.
He walked to the wall, lifted a flame braided chain from its hook, and placed it at Solaris’s feet.
“I will ask the cairn council to rewrite the bond,” he said. “You’ll take no collar again.”
Then, softly: “And neither will your children.”
Days passed. The fevered girl recovered. The boy, now under Solaris’s quiet supervision, took to the ash pits with a haunted gaze but steady hands.
At dawn, he brought Solaris firewood without being asked.
At dusk, he left a hand-carved wolf at the hearth.
Taranis watched from the upper cairn, Morrigan seated beside him.
“He’ll never steal again,” Taranis said.
“No,” Solaris replied, stepping beside him. “Because now he belongs.”
Taranis looked at his old friend, the man who had once been enemy. Then servant, then brother in all but blood.
“Thank you, Solaris.”
The Flamekeeper only smiled and added another log to the fire.
That evening, Solaris’s eldest son, Nyx, approached. He carried a plate of meat and grain, handing it to his father before setting his own aside.
“You scorn the meal, boy?” Taranis asked.
“No, sir,” Nyx said. “But it’s not right I get meat and grain while my father gets broth.”
Taranis tilted his head. Then smirked.
“Bring your father a plate from my stores.”
Then added, almost as an afterthought
“And Solaris it was never one dragon, was it? Two stood beside me all along.”
One Week Later Postscript to The Flame That Counsels
“He’s gone mad. The Highlord’s either broken or possessed.”
The guard’s words hit like ash in the lungs. Solaris said nothing, hands deep in the roots he was cleaning for poultice. He’d heard rumors all morning that Taranis had dismissed the old slave branders, torn the punishment scrolls in half, and ordered the cairnstones rewritten.
Another voice joined the first: “They say he talks to the dragons now. Not just rides them talks. Pendragon flew south and turned back. Refused to land in Gaedrix’s old territory.”
Then came softer steps. Young Nyx, barefoot and breathless, ran across the ash-warmed floor of the kitchen hall.
“Uncle Solaris!” he grinned, waving a carved wolf bone. “Father says you can visit him. No chains. No guards. Just you. He said it’d be good to see you without your collar.”
Solaris froze. Slowly, he turned — not to the boy, but to the collar hanging near the forge. Empty. Cold.
“Why now?” he asked, kneeling.
Nyx beamed. “He says the laws are wrong. That you helped him remember who he was. That it’s time to make them right.”
The fire cracked behind him. Solaris closed his eyes.
Later that dusk, in the central hall of Emberhelm, Taranis stood before his people — not in war-gear, but in storm-black robes, his sword sheathed at his back, Morrigan and Boldolph flanking him like ghosts.
A hush fell.
Then he spoke.
“I was cast out as a child chained not by iron, but by fear. I lived. I burned. I changed.
So hear me now.
From this day onward, Stormborne law changes:
First crime: a warning, carved in cairnstone. Second: servitude, no longer than a season’s moon. Third: magical judgment the storm or the shadow will decide. No child shall ever be born in chains. Dragons will not fly over lands where children are enslaved. All who labor shall eat. None shall go hungry. The broken, the maimed, the soul-wounded they will have a place. We are not the Clawclan. We are Stormborne. The fire will not consume us. It will make us whole.”
Lore lit the cairnstones behind him. Solaris stepped forward and cast his collar into the flame. Pendragon circled overhead.
Taranis met his gaze with quiet steel.
“You are no longer mine,” he said. “But you are still my kin.”
Solaris bowed low, not as slave but as Flamekeeper.
And above them, the wolves howled, and the fire did not flicker.
Taranis turned to Morrigan and Boldolph, who stood unmoving beneath the runestone arch. A chant had begun low in their throats a strange, old language from before the cairns were raised.
“That is, if you’ll stay, Solaris?” Taranis asked quietly.
Then to the wolves:
“Boldolph. Morrigan. You’ll be free of this too. The curse ends with fire and brotherhood. You’ll walk again in human form.”
The chant rose.
The fire roared.
And somewhere in the high wind above Emberhelm, the storm broke not in rage, but in light.
Artistic depiction of a fierce wolf howling at the moon, embodying the spirit of the Wild Years and the bond between Taranis and the great wolves of Caernath.Abstract artwork featuring intricate patterns and vibrant colors, created by artist ELHewitt from StormborneArts.A striking depiction of the great wolf Boldolph, symbolizing loyalty and strength in the tale of Taranis Stormborne.Vibrant artwork depicting Taranis Stormborne and the thunder-dragon Tairneanach, symbolizing their powerful bond in the world of Emberhelm.
High Warlord of Emberhelm Exile. Survivor. Dragon Rider.
“The storm did not break me. It made me.” Taranis Stormborne
Born of Storm. Forged by Fire. Taranis Stormborne was not born to rule. He was born beneath a sky torn open by lightning. Marked by omens the elders feared and prophecies they not control. At just eight years old, he was cast out—exiled for powers no one dared understand.
But exile did not break him. It shaped him.
Exile and the Wild Years
Driven from Emberhelm into the haunted woods of Caernath. The boy who should have died found allies no tribe claim.: the great wolves Boldolph and Morrigan, creatures of fang and flame who walked between spirit and shadow.
From them, Taranis learned the old truths how to hunt, to command silence, to harness the storm within.
The Dragon Bond
Years later, during a blood eclipse at Rykar’s Ridge, Taranis encountered the thunder-dragon Tairneanach, long thought lost to legend. In that moment, lightning met fire. Beast and man did not tame one another they recognized each other.
The storm had chosen its rider.
⚔️ Rise of the Stormborne He returned not in vengeance, but in purpose. With brothers Drax and Lore at his side.Taranis united the scattered clans of the highlands and led them against the Clawclan invaders. His victory over the warlord Gaedrix at Rykar’s Ridge lit the flame of rebellion—and rebirth.
He became not just a warlord, but a symbol. The exile returned. The prophecy fulfilled.
Who Is He?
Taranis walks a line between fire and mercy. Towering, scarred, and grey-eyed, he speaks little and strikes hard. But beneath the ash lies a deep loyaltyto his people. To the forgotten, and to those who fight for more than conquest.
He is not king by blood. He is leader by choice. And the storm, once his curse, now answers his call.
Known As:
The Fire-Blooded
Stormborne Lord
Malcrone of Emberhelm
Rider of Tairneanach
Breaker of Clawclan
His Realm
Emberhelm, Caernath Set atop the Seven Hills of the Stormborne, Emberhelm is both fortress and flame. From here, Taranis watches the horizon not as ruler, but as guardian of the storm.
Title: Lord Commander of the Stormborne Realm: Shadowmere, Bronze Age frontier of rivers and stone Brother to: High Warlord Taranis and Lore, the Flamebearer
Character Bio:
Drax Stormborne is the iron heart of the Stormborne resistance a battle-scarred warrior whose silence weighs more than words.
Where Taranis commands with the fury of the storm and Lore with the wisdom of the ancients. Drax rules the battlefield with unwavering precision and primal force.
Raised in the shadow of his brother’s exile, Drax carved his loyalty in blood and fire. When the Clawclan advanced on the borders of Caernath. It was Drax who held the line, forging discipline into the ragged ranks of Stormborne fighters.
His realm, Shadowmere, is wild and watchful a land of rivers, woods, and ancient circles. where warriors learn to move like ghosts and strike like thunder.
Clad in furs and iron, adorned with war tattoos and scars that speak of countless battles. Drax is a living symbol of Stormborne resolve. Though his voice is rare, his presence speaks volumes protector, strategist, brother. His loyalty to Taranis is absolute, and his trust in Lore is forged through fire.
Some call him the Wolf of Shadowmere. Others, the Axe of Emberhelm. All know one truth: Drax does not retreat.
The sky over Rykar’s Ridge cracked with a sound like splitting stone.
Pendragon rose first wings stretched wide. Vast as storm sails, his bronze and emerald scales catching the last light of day. He circled high above the valley, a gleaming sovereign watching the armies assemble below.
To the west, the last kin of Stormborne gathered. Taranis stood at the forefront, grey-eyed and grave, flanked by Lore and Drax. The ground at their backs was scorched from the fire of prophecy.
To the east, under curling black clouds, came the dragon of thunder Tairneanach, black as midnight and crowned with sparks. Lightning licked his flanks. His eyes were coals, ancient and furious.
He was the dragon of reckoning, storm-forged and prophecy-bound, the one who watched from the shadows of time.
But this was no duel between beasts alone.
It was the end of an age. And dragons, it was said, chose sides not by blood — but by truth.
Taranis looked to the sky. “They’ve returned,” he said softly.
Drax scoffed. “Or come to see who burns first.”
“Dragons don’t come for sport,” Lore murmured, hand resting on the carved staff of flamewood. “They come when destiny wavers.”
The wind shifted.
Down came Pendragon, his great claws curling into the soil beside Taranis. His gaze fell on the young warlord no longer the exiled child of the woods. But a leader draped in fire-scars and ash-braided hair. Pendragon gave a low, resonant growl. Not a threat. A vow.
And across the field, Tairneanach descended like a storm himself, cracking trees and stone beneath his wingspan. His breath steamed in the air heavy with ozone. Thunder rolled in his chest.
They faced each other now: two titans born before men stood upright. Two dragons of the Stormborne prophecy.
The wind stilled.
And in that silence, Morrigan lifted her howl to the sky a signal from the ridge behind. Boldolph stood beside her in wolfman form, snarling low.
The Clawclan were moving.
“DRAX!” Taranis barked. “Hold the eastern rise!”
Drax nodded, slamming his axe against his shield. “With pleasure.”
“LORE!” he turned, voice like thunder. “Prepare the flame line. If the dragons fall—”
“They won’t,” Lore cut in, eyes glowing faintly. “But I’ll be ready.”
The Clawclan came screaming from the ridge like hornets. Painted in black and red, bone charms rattling, fire arrows loosed high. The first line met Drax’s warriors in a clash of metal, blood, and grit.
Behind them, the Stormborne shield-wall held fast. But the pressure built like a coming flood.
Pendragon roared, rearing high. With one beat of his wings, he swept fire over the Clawclan’s flank .flames so hot they melted shields anoʻd seared the earth itself. Men screamed, scattered, and fell.
But then, a second roar answered.
Tairneanach unleashed his storm.
Lightning struck the centre of the field, ripping through both earth and sky. The power coursed through bones, hearts, even memory. Clawclan warriors staggered but so did some of Stormborne’s own.
The dragons circled each other, neither striking first.
Not yet.
Amid the chaos, a boy barely of age charged toward Taranis blade too large for his arms. Face painted in fear and madness.
Taranis met him not with fury, but with mercy.
He turned the blade aside, struck the hilt, and knocked the boy unconscious.
“There’s no glory in slaying the broken,” he muttered.
A moment later, Boldolph leapt past him slamming into a Clawclan berserker with enough force to crack ribs. Morrigan followed, her white fur streaked with blood and soot, her teeth finding the throat of another.
Still the dragons circled.
Still the battle burned.
And then..
Pendragon dipped low. Not toward Tairneanach, but toward the battlefield.
A new force had emerged from the mists a second wave of Clawclan. armed with net-traps and dragon-piercing spears forged from meteoric ore.
“Cowards,” Lore hissed. “They seek to slay the sacred.”
Tairneanach landed with a thunderous quake.
He did not aid the Clawclan.
He turned against them.
His tail swept wide, sending a dozen spearmen flying. His mouth opened — but instead of lightning, he loosed a scream of pure rage.
Pendragon landed beside him, and for a moment. the two dragons stood back to back defending not sides, but something older.
Stormborne. Balance. Prophecy.
The brothers saw it too.
Taranis, Lore, Drax covered in blood and smoke turned toward the dragons now defending their people.
And Taranis whispered, “It was never a battle between them.”
“No,” said Lore. “It’s a battle for us.”
“For Stormborne,” Drax added, gripping his weapon.
Tairneanach raised his head, and with a final, sky-splitting roar, flew straight into the blackened clouds above. Pendragon followed, spiralling upward.
Together, they vanished into the storm.
And on the ridge below, the Stormborne warriors stood not victorious, but awakened.
The sky split again.
This time, it was not Tairneanach who screamed across the clouds, but Pendragon, rising high and circling above the valley. Beneath him, the Black Clawclan surged ahead like a tide of locusts. War cries rang out. Spears glinted. Shields slammed together in rhythm.
But at the front of the Stormborne line stood Taranis unmoved, massive, his blade held sideways like it weighed nothing.
Beside him, Boldolph roared half-man, half-wolf, his red eyes glowing. He slammed the butt of his axe into the ground and bared his teeth.
Behind them, Lore raised his staff. “Now!” he cried.
The runes carved into the ancient stones shimmered. The hill beneath the enemy’s feet cracked as though the land itself rejected their presence.
Drax, bloodied from an earlier clash, stood on a higher ridge, calling the warriors into formation. “Spears up! Hold the line! If we fall today, the fire dies with us!”
The dragons descended.
Pendragon spiralled downward, a comet of colour and fury. He opened his mouth and from it came not just fire, but a heat so intense it twisted the air. The Clawclan’s front ranks scattered as tents and timber exploded into flame.
From the west, Tairneanach swooped low and screamed. a bolt of lightning leapt from his jaws and struck the enemy catapult, reducing it to smouldering splinters.
“DRAGONS!” a terrified voice cried. “The legends were true!”
The battlefield was chaos.
Taranis leapt into the fray, his sword catching fire as Pendragon soared above. With every swing, a foe fell not just cut down, but shattered. It was as if the storm had learned to walk.
Boldolph tore through the lines like a shadow of vengeance. He moved low and fast, clawing one man across the chest. Slamming another with his shoulder so hard the man flew ten feet.
The brothers fought in unison, their bond forged through exile and pain.
Lore, standing at the sacred cairn, whispered ancient words. Roots erupted from the ground, tangling the Clawclan’s feet. A tree burst through the soil like a spear, skewering a line of advancing warriors.
Still they came.
From the far end of the field rode their leader a brute named Gaedrix. cloaked in bone armour and wielding twin axes carved from dragon tooth.
He bellowed a challenge.
Taranis turned. His sword burned brighter. “This ends now.”
They met in the centre of the field the High Warlord and the Bone King.
Steel clashed. Sparks flew. The ground cracked beneath their boots. Gaedrix struck wild, savage, unrelenting. But Taranis moved like wind and thunder blocking, dodging, answering with devastating power.
One swing he broke Gaedrix’s left axe.
Another he knocked the warlord to one knee.
The Bone King snarled, blood spraying from his lips. “You should’ve stayed dead, Stormborne.”
Taranis drove his blade into the ground beside him, stepped forward, and cracked Gaedrix across the jaw with his gauntlet.
“I don’t die,” he said.
Then, as the dragons roared overhead and the warriors of Stormborne shouted in unison. Taranis lifted Gaedrix above his head and hurled him toward the burning ridge.
He never rose again.
Silence swept the field.
The remaining Black Claw warriors, seeing their leader defeated, dropped their weapons. Some fled. Others dropped to their knees.
The sky cleared.
Pendragon circled once before landing beside Taranis. The great beast bowed his head, his flank marked by a shallow gash but his eyes burning bright.
Tairneanach landed beside Boldolph, nudging the wolf-man with a low, throaty growl.
Drax limped forward, laughing through the pain. “You’ve always been dramatic.”
Taranis sheathed his sword and looked around at the wreckage, the blood, the fire.
“We were born of storm,” he said. “But we survive through each other.”
Lore joined them, hand resting on the cairn stone. “The old ways live.”
From the cliffs above, children and elders peeked out watching, hoping.
Taranis turned and called, “We are Stormborne! This is your land. Your fire. Your home!”
Cheers broke like thunder across the valley.
Boldolph threw his head back and howled. Morrigan’s answering cry echoed from the woods. The wolves had returned.
Above them, the two dragons fire and storm crossed paths in the sky.
A new age had begun. The prophesy come true. Tairneanach landed near Taranis allowing Taranis to climb his back.
“I’m not the ball I’m the dragon rider ” Taranis smirked chuckling as he swooped up into the sky.
but it gave me no answer, Just the echo of paws in the frost-bitten heather. I searched for your scent in the whispering rain, Through bones of the hills and the breath of the plain.
We were fire and fang, you and I, Bound by curse, by claw, by sky. You ran ahead white flash through trees While I remained, dragged down by knees.
I saw you in dreams where no man treads, Where wolves wear crowns and ghosts break bread. Morrigan, my moon-heart, do you still roam The hollowed-out places we once called home?
I would trade my strength, my storm-wrought hand, For one more touch, for one command. To run beside you beneath the stars, Free of these chains, these cursed scars.
But if fate is cruel and time is blind, I’ll wait through seasons undefined. For love like ours does not decay It howls, it hunts, it finds a way.
The mists rolled thick across the highland of Staffordshire, curling like ghost fingers over rock and root. Beneath their shifting veil stood a figure that did not belong to the world of men not entirely. He was massive, broad-shouldered, with the raw frame of a warrior and the head of a beast. His fur was obsidian black, streaked with silver scars and ash.
Red eyes burned beneath his brow. His breath came out in steam as if the forge fire lived in his lungs.
Boldolph.
The wolf-man. The cursed one. The guardian of the Stormborne line.
That morning, he had awoken not as man, nor wholly beast, but as something sacred. Taranis had spoken only two words to him before the sunrise: “It begins.”
And now he stood at the edge of Rykar’s Field, muscles tensed, waiting for the signal.
Bronze glinted on the hilltop warriors from the Black Clawclan had gathered in force, armed with spears and teeth alike. Raiders, born of bloodlust, who left villages razed and children buried beneath burnt thatch.
A low growl rumbled in Boldolph’s throat.
Today, they would be stopped.
Below him, the Stormborne forces gathered. Taranis on the ridge with Pendragon and Tairneanach perched behind him.
, Lore chanting beside a fire that would not die. Drax tightening his bracers, muttering curses and prayers as one. Among the warriors stood farmers, hunters, fire-callers, bone-weavers all who had chosen to rise.
But none were like Boldolph.
He crouched low, the carved bronze blade strapped to his back. humming faintly forged by Drax, blessed by Lore, named Ashsplitter. His claws, though not natural, were tipped in obsidian. His howls call Morrigan from the far trees and silence men’s hearts.
And when the horn blew, he moved like a shadow torn free of the dark.
He crashed into the enemy line like a storm of fang and bronze. The first man he struck did not even scream just fell, bones splintered beneath the weight of the blow. Boldolph spun, slashed, roared, tore. Blood hit the grass like spilled wine.
The Black Clawclan were fierce but they were not ready.
“By the ancestors!” one shouted, staring in horror. “A beast walks!”
A spear was hurled. Boldolph caught it midair, snapped the shaft, and flung it back. It pierced armor and flesh. The man fell.
He was not alone.
From the trees came Morrigan white and wraithlike, her eyes alight with moonfire. Together, they circled the enemy, not as humans, not as animals but as something other. Something older.
Across the field, Taranis raised his sword high.
“For every child taken,” he shouted, “for every flame snuffed out WE RISE!”
The Stormborne charged. Bronze clashed with bronze. Flesh tore. Voices sang the old war cries.
Boldolph didn’t hear them. He was lost to instinct now the heartbeat of the land pounding in his ears. His claws met bone. His teeth found leather and neck. He leapt and rolled and dove through fire.
A warrior came at him with twin blades, marked in red clay and hate. Boldolph let him come. At the last second, he dropped low, sprang upward, and slammed both fists into the man’s chest. The impact shattered ribs and silence.
Then came the Champion.
Tall, scarred, wrapped in tattoos of wolf skulls. He grinned as he strode ahead, axe glinting.
“You’re no god,” the Champion sneered. “Just a cursed mutt.”
Boldolph stood, blood dripping from his chin.
“I am neither,” he growled, “but you will kneel before this mutt.”
They clashed.
Steel to fang. Roar to warcry. The battle stilled around them as the two titans fought. Blades rang. Earth shook. Bones cracked.
At last, Boldolph caught the Champion’s axe arm, twisted and snapped it. With a howl, he drove the dagger into the man’s chest.
Silence.
Then the howl.
Long. Ancient. Reverberating through stone, marrow, memory.
After the battle, the field was quiet.
The dead lay in solemn rows, the fires lit to honor their spirits. Taranis stood at the center, cloak torn, eyes fierce. Lore marked the ground with runes of ash. Drax drank in silence.
And Boldolph… sat alone beneath a tree.
His fur was streaked with blood. His eyes no longer burned they watched the stars. Morrigan lay beside him, her white coat stained with battle.
A small child approached. Her face was smudged with soot. Her eyes, wide with awe.
“Are you a monster?” she asked.
Boldolph tilted his head.
“No,” he said softly. “I am what protects you from monsters.”
She sat beside him.
In that moment with the fire crackling, and the dead honored. the Stormborne still alive Boldolph, the cursed wolf-man, found peace.
The fire had long gone out, and the cold crept in like a snake through the underbrush. Taranis sat with his back to a stone outcrop, shivering in silence. His breath came in misted gasps, though he dared not build another fire. Fire drew eyes. And eyes mean death.
He was only nine winters old skin and bones beneath a damp wolf-pelt, alone since exile. Alone… or so he believed.
Until that night.
A low growl rolled from the darkness.
Taranis reached for his stick-spear crude, splintered, tipped with flint and rose to a crouch. The growl came again, closer. Deep. Measured. Not hunger. Not rage. Warning.
The trees parted.
A shadow, massive and black, emerged from the mist.
The wolf.
Not just any wolf this one had eyes like embered blood. A scar down his left side that caught the moonlight. He have snapped Taranis in two.
But he didn’t.
Instead, the wolf circled once, then lay down, his tail wrapping around his legs. He did not blink. He just watched.
Taranis lowered his spear.
“You’re not here to eat me,” he said, voice hoarse from days without speech.
The wolf said nothing, but his ears twitched.
Taranis crept closer, sat back down beside the dying fire pit. He wrapped the pelt tighter and leaned ahead.
“I don’t know why they hate me,” he whispered.
The wolf’s eyes did not move.
“I saved my brother. I didn’t ask for the fire, or the storm. I just… did what I was told.”
Still the wolf said nothing, but his breathing was calm, deliberate like he was listening.
Taranis closed his eyes.
In the morning, he woke to warmth. Not from a fire, but from the wolf curled around him, sheltering him from the frost.
From that day onward, Boldolph never left his side.
He didn’t need to speak. His presence was enough. His strength, a shield. His silence, a vow.
Taranis never asked him why.
But deep down, he knew.
Boldolph had seen something in him not just a boy, not just a fire-starter. Something ancient. Something kin.
And Taranis, though still just a child, reached out and rested a hand on the wolf’s thick fur.
StormborneLore 