StormborneLore

Tag: brotherhood

  • Rome’s Shadow: Taranis and the Fight for Freedom

    Rome’s Shadow: Taranis and the Fight for Freedom

    By E.L. Hewitt — StormborneLore

    The mists of Cnocc clung low across the fields when Taranis turned north.
    Rain soaked the cloak across his shoulders, each drop heavy as guilt. Behind him, the standing stones of the old circle faded into grey half memory, half warning.

    A handful of men followed, what was left of the Black Shields. Some limped. Some bled quietly into the mud. Yet none complained.

    They cut through the marsh track at Landywood, the ground sucking at their boots.

    “Bloody mire,” grumbled one of them Caedric, a smith from the Chase. “If Rome don’t catch us, we’ll drown in the bog.”

    Taranis gave a faint smile. “Better the bog than their chains. Least the land buries its dead with honour.”

    The men laughed, low and rough, their voices carrying through the mist.
    Overhead, crows turned circles against a sky bruised with stormlight.

    By midday, they reached the edge of Cannock Chase. The trees rose dark and close, their branches whispering in the wind.

    Here, the old tongue lived still the rustle of leaves. Carried the same sounds as the words once spoken in Mercia before Rome built her roads.

    “Best not light a fire,” said another man. “The smoke’ll draw ‘em down Watling Street.”

    Taranis shook his head. “The legions keep to stone. They fear what grows wild. That’s our road, not theirs.”

    They made camp near the brook, the water brown with silt.

    Taranis knelt, washing his hands, watching the red earth swirl away downstream.

    He thought of Drax his brother in law and blood. Who wasvstanding in that Roman armour like a stranger wearing their father’s ghost.

    “Praefect Drax,” he muttered. “You walk in the eagle’s shadow now. But one day, even eagles fall.”

    As the others settled, Taranis sat alone beneath a birch tree. The thunder rolled again to the south, echoing over the hills of Pennocrucium.

    He closed his eyes and let the sound find him not as omen, but as promise.

    “Let Rome march,” he said softly. “The storm remembers.”

    By nightfall, the brook had gone still only the soft hiss of drizzle on leaves broke the quiet.

    The Black Shields huddled beneath the birches.Their cloaks steaming faintly where the rain met the last of the day’s warmth.

    A small fire burned low, more ember than flame. They sat close to it, speaking little. The world had shrunk to mist and memory.

    From the shadows, a young scout pushed through the undergrowth, mud streaking his face.

    “Riders,” he whispered, breath sharp with fear. “South o’ Watling Street. Legion banners silver eagle, red field. A dozen strong, maybe more.”

    Taranis looked up, his eyes catching what light the fire still gave. “Which way?”

    “East,” said the boy. “Toward Pennocrucium.”

    That word hung like ash. Rome’s fort Drax’s post.

    Caedric spat into the fire. “Then your brother’s hounds are sniffin’ their trail back home.”

    “Mind your tongue,” Taranis said, but without heat. “Drax walks a path I wouldn’t, but he walks it for his sons. Rome holds chains tighter than iron.”

    The men nodded. They’d all felt those chains some on their wrists, some around their hearts.

    The fire popped softly. Rain whispered down through the canopy, finding its way to the coals.

    “Shall we move?” asked Caedric.
    “Not yet.”

    Taranis rose, brushing mud from his knees. “If they ride to Pennocrucium, they won’t look for us here. And if Drax stands where I think he does, he’ll turn them aside before dawn.”

    He turned his gaze toward the south, where the hills of Cnocc faded into night.

    The stormlight there flickered once a pale flash through the clouds.

    “See that?” murmured one of the men. “Thunder over Penn. He’s sendin’ you a message, I reckon.”

    Taranis smiled faintly. “Aye. Or a warning.”

    He knelt by the fire and drew a spiral in the dirt the old mark, the storm’s sign.

    “Tomorrow we move north,” he said. “Watling Street’s theirs, but the woods are ours. We’ll strike where the road breaks near the old fort make Rome remember who walks her border.”

    The men grinned, weary but alive again.
    For a heartbeat, the fire caught, burning bright as dawn.

    Above them, thunder rolled once more.
    It sounded like a heartbeat slow, vast, unending.

    Copyright Note

    © 2025 E. L. Hewitt / Stormborne Arts. All rights reserved.
    Unauthorized copying or reproduction of this artwork and text is prohibited.

    Thank you for reading.© 2025 Emma Hewitt / StormborneLore. All rights reserved.Unauthorized copying or reproduction of this content is prohibited.

    If you enjoyed this story, like, share, or leave a comment. Your support keeps the storm alive and the chronicles continuing.

    If you want to read more about Taranis please see The Prophecies and Tales of Taranis Unfolded

  • From Chains to Legends: The Rise of the Black Shields

    From Chains to Legends: The Rise of the Black Shields

    The Storm Returns

    The tide was retreating when they found the broken chains. The sight of melted iron through as if struck by lightning.

    “Gods preserve us,” whispered one of the guards, stepping back. “No blade have done that.”

    Tiberius knelt beside the scorched links. “He didn’t break free,” he muttered. “He shed them.”

    The centurion barked orders.,Sending riders to the northern watch and ships to sweep the channel. But even as they moved, the sky began to darken. The wind shifted, dragging the scent of iron and rain across the water.

    “He’s gone home,” Tiberius said at last. “Back to the place Rome never tamed.”

    “To Britannia?” asked the young guard again, voice shaking.

    “Aye,” said the older legionary. “And if the stories are true, every storm between here and there will answer his call.”

    From the cliffs, they can see the faint shimmer of the sea calm for now, but seething beneath.


    The Emperor’s standard flapped once, hard enough to snap its pole.

    “Should we tell the mainland?” the centurion asked.

    Tiberius stood slowly, eyes on the horizon. “Tell them nothing. Let them think he drowned. If the gods favour us, maybe they’ll believe it.”

    But none of them truly did.
    Even as the orders went out, the men felt the pressure in the air, that strange stillness before thunder. Somewhere far to the north, in the heart of Britannia, the wind began to rise.

    “What if he’s caught out there commander?”

    Tiberius didn’t answer at first. His eyes stayed on the sea, the horizon split between light and shadow.

    “If he’s caught,” he said finally, “then the sea itself will break first.”

    The young guard frowned. “You speak as if he’s a god.”

    Tiberius turned to him, his face hard. “You weren’t here when they brought him in chains. You didn’t see the storm that followed. The ships burned before they reached the harbour. No oil, no fire arrows, just lightning, and him standing in the rain, laughing.”

    The guard swallowed, his knuckles white around his spear.

    Another soldier older, scarred, voice low spat into the dirt. “Men like that ain’t gods. They’re reminders. Rome builds, Rome burns, and the earth keeps its own count.”

    Thunder rolled far out to sea, deep and slow.

    “Get word to the docks,” Tiberius ordered. “Seal the forges. Lock down the armoury. And if the Emperor asks…”
    He paused, eyes narrowing.
    “…tell him the storm never left the island.”

    The men scattered to obey, but above them, the gulls were already fleeing inland.


    The wind picked up again not from the west, but the north.
    And on the water, beneath a bruised sky, something vast and dark moved with purpose.

    Taranis stood at the prow of the small boat, the sea hissing beneath its hull as if warning him back.
    He only smiled.

    The wind carried the scent of earth his earth and beyond the mist. The cliffs of Britannia rose like the bones of old gods. Behind him, the island of exile vanished into shadow. Before him lay vengeance, memory, and the ghosts of his kin.

    “Home,” he murmured. “Or what’s left of it.”

    His brothers would be the first. Drax, bound by Rome’s gold and law; Rayne, lost between loyalty and freedom. Then the old comrades, the broken men who once bore the wolf upon their shields.
    The Black Shields would rise again not as soldiers. But as something Rome can not name and never kill.

    He shifted his weight, watching the distant shoreline of Letocetum take shape through the fog.

    Beyond that lay the salt pits of Salinae. The forests near Vertis, the villages that still whispered his name like a curse and a prayer.

    “Word travels faster than ships,” he said to the empty wind. “By the time I step ashore, they’ll already know.”

    Lightning rippled across the far horizon, faint but deliberate, as though the heavens themselves answered.

    He gripped the tiller and laughed quietly to himself not with joy. But with the fierce certainty of a man who had waited too long to be mortal anymore.

    When the first gulls circled overhead and the shore drew near, Taranis whispered the words that had haunted his exile.


    “Rome fears the storm. Now it will remember why.”

    The tide carried him in. Somewhere in the fort at Rutupiae Drax Stormborne turned toward the sea. With a feeling of dread, without knowing, that the storm had come home.

    Thank you for reading.

    © 2025 Emma Hewitt / StormborneLore. All rights reserved.
    Unauthorized copying or reproduction of this content is prohibited.

    If you enjoyed this story, like, share, or leave a comment. Your support keeps the storm alive and the chronicles continuing.

  • The Island of Ash and Iron: A Tale of Resilience

    The Island of Ash and Iron: A Tale of Resilience

    The Island of Ash and Iron

    Written by
    emma.stormbornelore

    The island steamed beneath a blood-orange dawn. Black sand hissed as the tide pulled back, revealing fragments of broken shields and driftwood charred by lightning.

    Taranis Stormborne stood among the wreckage, cloak torn, hair slick with salt. Around him, the Black Shields gathered the fallen in silence.

    No victory songs were sung only the slow rhythm of men. Who understood the cost of silence and the weight of patience.

    “Bury them high,” Taranis said at last. “Let the wind speak their names.”

    He turned his gaze inland, where the volcanic ridges rose like the spines of sleeping beasts. Smoke drifted from fissures in the rock, thick with the scent of iron and ash.

    Beneath those ridges lay the forge a secret his men had built in defiance of empire.

    As the storm’s light faded behind the clouds, a scout approached, breath ragged.

    “Lupus… Rome has sent word north. They know a fleet was lost, but not how. They think it was a storm.”

    Taranis’s mouth curved into a faint, weary smile.

    “Then let the lie live. Storms are easier to fear than men.”

    He knelt beside a shattered shield half-buried in sand. Its surface was scorched black, the emblem of the wolf barely visible beneath the soot. With slow care, he traced the mark with his thumb, leaving a streak of silver ash.

    “This island is no longer exile,” he murmured. “It’s the forge of the next age. And when Rome’s thunder fades, ours will remain.”

    Above him, a distant rumble rolled through the clouds not thunder, but the awakening of something older.

    The storm had learned to wait.

    Thank you for reading.

    © 2025 Emma Hewitt / StormborneLore. All rights reserved.
    Unauthorized copying or reproduction of this content is prohibited.

    If you enjoyed this story, like, share, or leave a comment . Your support keeps the storm alive and the chronicles continuing.

  • The Long Game

    The Long Game

    “Mother, Father,” Caelum said quietly, his small hands trembling as he stepped into the firelight. “I saw him. My uncle chained in every way. I gave him the bowl of food.”

    The words fell like stones into still water. Even the fire’s crackle softened, as if the hearth itself held its breath.

    Lady Maerin rose from her chair, skirts whispering against the flagstones. “You saw him?” she whispered. “How, Caelum? How did they let a child so near?”

    Caelum swallowed hard. “The guards… they didn’t care. Uncle Marcos said it would ‘toughen me.’ He said I should learn what happens to men who defy Rome.” His gaze darted to Drax. “But Uncle Taranis he wasn’t broken, Father. Not like they said.”

    Drax’s jaw tightened. His hands curled into fists against the edge of the table. “Go on,” he said, voice low.

    Caelum’s eyes glistened in the glow of the fire. “He was hurt… bleeding. But he looked at me and smiled. He told me not to cry. He said” the boy’s voice faltered, “he said you’d come for him. That you’d want to. But he warned me… he said if you launch a rescue, they’ll make everyone suffer. If he escapes, they’ll make us all suffer. He said” Caelum’s voice broke. “He said to play the long game.”

    A silence followed that seemed to swallow the world.

    Lady Maerin’s breath hitched. “He’s thinking of us, even now,” she whispered. “Even in chains.”

    Drax rose slowly, the fire casting bronze and gold across his face. He moved to the window, where the mist pressed thick against the glass. Outside, thunder murmured faintly across the hills. He stared toward the south toward the Roman fort where his brother sat in chains.

    “The long game,” Drax repeated, the words rasping like steel drawn from a scabbard. “He means patience. Observation. Wait… and strike when the empire’s eyes are elsewhere.”

    Caelum nodded, wiping his nose on his sleeve. “He said storms don’t break, Father. They change the sky.”

    A small, aching smile ghosted across Drax’s lips. “Aye,” he murmured. “That sounds like him.”

    Behind him, Maerin’s voice was brittle as frost. “And what will you do, my lord? Wait… while they bleed him dry?”

    Drax turned, shadows shifting across his face. “I’ll do what he asks. For now.” His eyes hardened. “But when the storm comes when it truly comes not even Rome will stand in its path.”

    Lightning flashed through the mist. Illuminating the valley below and for a heartbeat, the clouds took the shape of wings unfurling above Emberhelm.

    Caelum hesitated before speaking again. “Father… are they poisoning Uncle Taranis?”

    Drax turned sharply. “What?”

    Caelum’s voice dropped to a whisper. “He’s not eating what they give him. He said the food tastes wrong.”

    The fire crackled louder then, as if stirred by an unseen wind. Drax’s gaze darkened.


    “Then Rome has already begun its slow killing,” he said softly. “But storms, Caelum…”


    He looked toward the thunder rolling in the distance.


    “…storms have a way of purging poison from the earth.”


  • The Weight of Emberhelm

    The Weight of Emberhelm

    A vibrant abstract background featuring intricate colorful patterns with the text 'The Chronicles of Drax' prominently displayed.

    The fires in Emberhelm burned low, their glow tracing the hall’s carved beams in dull amber. Outside, wind howled through the moors, carrying the echo of the horn that had once called the clans to war. Now it was only memory.

    Lord Drax Stormborne sat alone in the council chamber, a single goblet of wine untouched beside him. The maps and missives lay strewn across the oak table. Roman reports, messages from border scouts, pleas for grain from villages too frightened to send men to market.

    He had not slept. Sleep meant dreams, and dreams brought Taranis.

    His brother’s face haunted him not in death, but in defiance. Bound, bloodied, yet unbroken. There was strength in that memory, but guilt too.

    “You always were the fire,” Drax murmured, voice low. “And I the stone that smothered it.”

    A faint shuffle broke the silence. Caelum lingered at the doorway, unsure if he was welcome. “Father,” he said softly. “Marcos sent word. The Romans will move east toward the river forts. He says it’s only a patrol.”

    Drax’s lips curved into something that have been a smile. “Marcos says many things to make Rome sound smaller than it is.”

    He rose, the movement slow, heavy with sleepless weight. “Tell the men to prepare rations, but not weapons. We will not meet them with steel not yet.”

    Caelum hesitated. “Uncle Taranis wouldn’t wait.”

    “No,” Drax said, turning toward the window, where mist swirled over the dark moorlands. “He would burn the world to free one man. I must keep the world standing long enough for him to have one to return to.”

    The boy nodded but did not understand. Few ever would.

    Drax rested his hands on the cold stone sill, the wind tugging at his hair. Somewhere beyond the horizon, his brother still fought, still endured. And Drax the eldest, the anchor bore the burden of every storm that raged beyond his reach.

    “Forgive me, brother,” he whispered to the wind. “I keep the hearth burning, not because I’ve forgotten you… but because I know you’ll come back to it.”

    Further Reading

    The Chronicles of Drax

  • The Chains of Blood and Brotherhood

    The Chains of Blood and Brotherhood

    The storm had not yet left his veins. Even in exhaustion, Taranis’s breath came sharp as lightning through rain. The iron on his wrists bit deeper with each movement, the weight of Rome’s victory heavy, but not finished.

    He heard them before he saw them the measured tread of Caelum and Marcos. The murmur of soldiers giving way as they entered the cell yard. The torches flared against the damp walls, shadows stretching long like reaching fingers.

    “Uncle Marcos,” Caelum’s voice was quiet but edged with fear. “Can those chains come off him?”

    Marcos paused beside the centurion who held the keys. His gaze lingered on Taranis, bloodstained and silent, the faint curl of defiance still etched into his mouth. “They can,” Marcos said slowly. “But they won’t. Not yet.”

    Caelum’s jaw tightened. “He’s bleeding. If he dies”

    “He won’t,” Marcos interrupted, eyes never leaving Taranis. “He’s too stubborn to die.”

    Taranis lifted his head then, a slow, deliberate motion. “You sound almost proud, Marcos.” His voice was hoarse, roughened by sand and roar, but steady. “Tell me how does it feel, watching Rome chain another son of the storm?”

    Marcos stepped closer, the metal of his own armour glinting in the firelight. “It feels like survival,” he said quietly. “A lesson you still refuse to learn.”

    “Survival,” Taranis repeated, the word tasting like ash. “You call it that. I call it submission.”

    The centurion moved between them, keys jangling. “Enough talk.” But Marcos lifted a hand not to command, but to stay him.

    “Let him speak,” Marcos said. “Words weigh less than chains.”

    Caelum’s eyes flicked between them, confusion and pain warring in his young face. “He fought lions, Uncle. Bears. He lived through what no man should. Why must you treat him like this?”

    “Because,” Marcos

    “You know they say deaths the final lesson?” Taranis grinned…Marcos’s eyes hardened, but not with anger with something closer to grief.

    “Death teaches nothing,” he said. “It only silences the unteachable.”

    Taranis laughed then a low, ragged sound that echoed off the stone like distant thunder. “Then maybe silence is what Rome fears most. A man who dies still defiant who doesn’t give them their spectacle.”

    The centurion stepped ahead impatiently. “Enough of this.” He seized Taranis by the shoulder, but the bound warrior’s gaze did not waver.

    “Do you see it, Caelum?” Taranis rasped. “Chains don’t make a man loyal. They only show who fears him most.”

    Caelum swallowed hard, torn between the authority of his uncle and the raw conviction before him. “Uncle… he’s right. Rome fears him.”

    Marcos turned sharply. “Rome fears no man.” Yet even as he said it, his voice faltered, as if the walls themselves disagreed.

    A moment of silence fell the kind that breathes between lightning and thunder.

    Then Taranis whispered, “You once said the blood of the storm can’t be trained. You were right. It can only be bound… for a while.”

    The torches flickered, shadows dancing like spirits around the three men the Roman, the youth, and the storm-bound prisoner.

    Marcos finally turned away. “Clean his wounds,” he said curtly to the centurion. “He fights again at dawn.”

    As they left, Caelum lingered by the gate, his eyes locked on Taranis’s. “I’ll come back,” he said softly.

    Taranis’s faint grin returned. “Then bring thunder, boy. Rome hasn’t heard enough of it yet.”

    The cell door slammed shut, iron against stone but somewhere, deep beneath the fortress, thunder rolled.

    © 2025 Emma Hewitt / StormborneLore. All rights reserved.Unauthorized copying or reproduction of this content is prohibited.

    If you enjoyed this story, like, share, or leave a comment. Your support keeps the storm alive and the chronicles continuing.

    Futher Reading

    The Prophecies and Tales of Taranis Unfolded

  • The Breaking of the Circle

    The Breaking of the Circle

    The rain had thinned to a whisper, though the earth still drank its memory. The camp at Viroconium lay beneath a pall of grey the banners limp. The fires low, the air thick with the scent of wet iron and trampled earth.

    From the timber walls came the faint murmur of Latin, measured and precise, a language of order wrapped around conquest.

    Taranis Storm knelt in the mud outside the command tent, wrists chained, head bowed. The iron bit deep, the skin at his wrists raw and darkened with rust and blood.

    The mark of the Stormborne ring had already been scrubbed from his armour. He was no longer heir, no longer rebel merely a trophy of Rome.

    But even stripped bare, even silent, there was something in his stillness that unsettled the soldiers. Some swore the air shifted around him, that the faint tremor of thunder haunted the edges of his breath.

    Others avoided his gaze altogether, crossing themselves as they passed. A man broken should not look like that unyielding even in ruin.

    Inside the tent, the light was dim, filtered through canvas streaked with rain. The scent of oil lamps mingled with the metallic tang of blood. He had been made to wait hours, until the flap stirred, and three shadows crossed the threshold.

    Drax came first.

    Older now, heavier in both body and soul. The broad shoulders that had once carried their people’s trust. Now bore the eagle of Rome, its gold thread dull in the half-light. He paused by the entrance, rain dripping from his cloak, his eyes lingering on Taranis longer than words fill.

    Behind him, Rayne entered, slower. His face was pale with sleeplessness, the hollows beneath his eyes deepening the cold fire in his gaze. He did not meet Taranis’s eyes. The torchlight caught the edges of his features sharp, beautiful, worn.

    Draven followed last. He moved like a shadow quiet, deliberate, almost ghost like. His cloak brushed the ground, damp from the mist outside. When his eyes lifted, they carried both sorrow and warning.

    No one spoke at first. The silence was a living thing, heavy and raw, pressing between them like the weight of the storm itself.

    Then, slowly, Taranis lifted his head. The light touched his face. Revealing the dark bruises along his jaw. The faint smear of dried blood across his temple and eyes. Eyes that still burned with the calm fury of the storm.

    “Brother,” he rasped, voice rough but steady. “Have you come to finish what Rome began?”

    Rayne’s jaw tightened. “I came to make sure you lived.”

    “Lived?” A hollow laugh escaped him no warmth, no humour. “They’ll march me south in chains, Rayne. You traded the Circle for a collar. Don’t pretend it was mercy.”

    Drax’s tone was even, but heavy. “Enough. You both know what’s done can’t be undone. I took the oath so the rest of us survive. So that our kin would not hang from Roman walls.”

    “And what of honour?” Taranis’s gaze snapped to him. “Or do we trade that too for a few more winters of peace and a Roman coin to buy it?”

    Draven shifted in the corner. “Peace doesn’t last, brother. It only changes its face.”

    Rayne’s voice cracked through the air, sharp as the wind. “You think I wanted this? You think I didn’t bleed the same as you when the Circle broke? I saw no victory left to take I chose survival!”

    “You chose fear,” Taranis said softly. “And fear has a longer memory than Rome. It will rot what’s left of you.”

    Rayne turned away, jaw clenched, the lamplight trembling against his cheek. “You’d have doomed us all for pride.”

    “And you’d damn us for obedience,” Taranis countered.

    The space between them trembled with tension brothers bound by blood and broken by choice.

    Drax broke it first, his breath slow, his tone heavy with command. “They take you south tomorrow. I can do nothing more without risking every name tied to ours. Whatever happens after this live. Find your chance.”

    Taranis’s lips curved, a ghost of the old stormborn grin. “I will. And when I do…” His eyes rose, burning through the gloom. “I’ll remember who stood, and who knelt.”

    For a heartbeat, no one moved. Only the rain, soft and relentless, filled the quiet between them.

    Draven looked away first, eyes glinting with something close to grief. Drax’s shoulders sagged, his silence an admission. Rayne lingered his hand hovering at the tent’s edge, uncertain, trembling.

    “Taranis…” he began.

    “Go,” came the answer, quiet but final. “Before you remember what it means to be one of us.”

    But as Rayne turned to leave, Taranis’s voice cut through the rain again lower, heavier, carrying the weight of prophecy.
    “You know what you’ve done, brother. You’ve condemned the poor those I sheltered, the villages I defended. Rome will use your choice to bleed them dry.”

    His gaze flicked to Drax, then Draven. “Do what you must to live in my absence. Keep them safe if you can. But remember this the storm doesn’t die. It only learns patience.”

    The words hung in the air like thunder before the break.

    Rayne hesitated, his throat tight with something between guilt and defiance. “If you live to see freedom, Taranis… will you forgive me?”

    Taranis met his eyes grey meeting grey — and said nothing.

    Outside, a trumpet sounded the signal for the night watch. The guards were coming.

    The brothers turned, one by one, each carrying their silence like a wound.

    Drax’s heavy boots faded first. Draven followed, his steps ghost like. Rayne lingered, then vanished into the rain.

    Alone again, Taranis knelt in the mud and closed his eyes. The iron dug deep, but his breath was steady. The storm was not gone merely waiting beyond the hills, patient and unseen.

    And somewhere, far to the south, Rome’s banners rippled in the wind ready to claim the storm for themselves.

    © 2025 Emma Hewitt / StormborneLore. All rights reserved.Unauthorized copying or reproduction of this content is prohibited.If you enjoyed this story, like, share, or leave a comment. Your support keeps the storm alive and the chronicles continuing.

    Further Reading

    The Prophecies and Tales of Taranis Unfolded

  • The Chronicles of the Gold Ring. Chapter Six

    The Chronicles of the Gold Ring. Chapter Six

    The Night the Ring Shattered


    The night smelled of rain and iron.

    From the outer wall, Taranis could taste the storm before it broke sharp on the air, heavy in his bones. The valley below was black save for the faint glint of torchlight far beyond the river. The strangers from the ridge had come at last.

    “They’re not raiders,” Drax said, joining him at the wall. “Too few for a siege. Too disciplined for a skirmish.”

    “Too confident to live,” Taranis replied, though the set of his jaw told another story.

    By the time the first horn blew, the outer gate was already under assault. Not a roar of chaos, but the steady, hammering rhythm of a trained force. Boldolph and Morrigan were first to meet them teeth bared, fur bristling, their snarls rolling over the walls like distant thunder.

    Then the sky tore.

    Pendragon and Tairneanach came from the dark like living fire. Wings swept low, scattering the first wave of attackers into the river. For a heartbeat, the night belonged to Emberhelm.

    But then a cry from the inner courtyard.

    Nessa, blade in hand, burst from the shadows. “Caelum’s chamber is empty!”

    Taranis didn’t think he moved. Past the gate, through the melee, cutting down the enemy commander’s guard one by one until steel rang on steel. The man was quick, his armour unfamiliar banded metal, curved like river reeds, not the crude plates of the hill tribes. A shadow of Rome in the making.

    Behind them, the wolves fought on. Boldolph took a spear to the ribs and kept moving. Morrigan’s howl was the last thing many would hear before the river claimed them.

    Inside the sacred circle, Lore’s voice rose over the clash an old chant to bind the enemy’s will. Draven tried to hold the stones, his hands trembling against the carved runes. Rayne was nowhere to be seen.

    The duel was short and brutal. Taranis drove his blade through the man’s chest, wrenching it free as lightning split the sky. But in that moment, the circle of stones shook. One the thirteenth stone cracked down its face with a sound like the earth breaking.

    Pendragon roared once more, then wheeled away into the storm. Tairneanach followed. Neither would be seen again.

    When the gate finally closed, the field beyond was strewn with the dead ours and theirs. Boldolph lay on the bridge, Morrigan beside him, the river taking their last breath.

    And in the quiet after, Caelum was found untouched, but with a strip of strange iron tied to his crib. A mark, a warning, or a promise.

    Taranis stood in the ruins of Emberhelm, rain running from his cloak, watching the storm move east.

    “I will find who brought them to our gates,” he said.

    From the shadows, Rayne’s voice answered, almost too soft to hear.
    “You won’t have to look far.”

    © 2025 Emma Hewitt. All rights reserved.This story and all characters within the StormborneLore world are the original creation of Emma Hewitt. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations used in reviews or scholarly works.

    Further Reading

    The Library of Caernath

    The Chronicles of the Gold Ring… Chapter One

    The Chronicles of the Gold Ring Chapter Two

    The Chronicles of the Gold Ring Chapter Three.

    The Chronicles of the Gold Ring Chapter Four.

    The Chronicles of the Gold Ring Chapter Five

  • THE WILDERNESS YEARS Part 1.

    THE WILDERNESS YEARS Part 1.

    The enslaved Tanaris

    The clouds hung low, casting a strange dark light over the gathering. The council of elders stood in a tight circle around a young boy.

    “Stormborne, you are now and forever exiled from this village, this clan, and your family,” the elder leader declared, his eyes fixed on the child. Elder Ysra held the ceremonial staff before her, unmoving.

    The little boy turned to his family. “Father, I didnot hurt anyone. Please” he begged, but his words were met with silence.

    All thirteen of his brothers turned their backs. Then his mother did the same. Conan, his father, hesitated but looked away, knowing he could not stand against the council.

    Taranis ran from the camp, tears blinding him as he fled into the woods. His sprint slowed to a walk. He stumbled across berries and gathered nettles to eat. His first meal as an exile—nettles and nuts.

    “Not filling,” he whispered, “but the old ones ate it. Mama used to cook it.” He curled against the base of an ancient tree. Overhead, dragons roared. Wolves howled in the distance.

    Time stilled. The ache of loneliness pressed down on him. He missed his brothers, his mothers humming, and even his fathers barked commands. He walked on, aimless, until he saw a white wolf. He froze.

    The wolf approached, sniffed him, cautious but curious. Then a large black wolf circled nearby.

    “We will not hurt you. Iam Boldolph,’ said the black wolf said not aloud, but directly into his mind.

    ‘You you wont?” the boy whispered as other wolves approached, dropping meat at his feet.

    “No,” said the white wolf, lying down. “We are here to help. Your father sent us. I am Morrigan. Come, lie with me. Warm yourself.”

    Taranis walked to her and buried himself in her thick fur. Boldolph stood guard, ever watchful.

    He had lost his home, his name, and his kin. He had seen a friend die. Three winters passed, and the boy grew thin and pale, cradled in fur and silence. Then one morning, feverish and weak, he was found.

    “Father, hes curled up with the wolves,” a boy said.

    “We will take him. He will serve as a slave,” the man replied, lifting Taranis with ease.

    They carried him to their camp. Women nursed him back to health, but one day he awoke and reached for his neck. A collar.

    “Leave it,” said a teenage boy sitting nearby. ‘They will beat you if you touch it.”

    “Who are you?” Taranis rasped.

    ” I am Solaris of black claw. I am one of your owners sons,” he said, offering him bread. “You are in the Black Claw clans camp. My father found you fevered and curled up with wolves. You are to stay here as a slave.”

    From that day, Taranis worked from sunrise to sunset. He obeyed without question, learning to serve in kitchens and at the forge. He heard whispers of a cursed child, exiled and touched by dark forces.

    On his eighteenth birthday, he hauled stones beneath the harsh gaze of the masters. One man held a branch, ready to strike.

    He was tall now, but thin. His back bore scars from the collar and the lash. All he wanted was to see Boldolph and Morrigan again.

    A slap of something warm and wet stung his spine.

    “Keep it moving!” barked a voice.

    The clan leaders sons played nearby. Solaris laughed with his younger brothers by the grain shed. One of them, a tall boy with a cruel grin, threw a rotten turnip.

    It struck Taranis in the chest. The others laughed.

    “Stop it,” Solaris snapped. “He is not our enemy.”

    “He is a slave,” the older boy sneered. “You and Father found him half-dead. No name, no clan. Just stories of a cursed exile.”

    That was me. Eight years old, alone in the snow. They said I was cursed. Touched by darkness.

    But I was just a child.

    He didnot remember lunging only the feel of dirt flying behind his heels. Rage took over.

    The branch came down before he landed a punch.

    Crack.

    Pain burst across his shoulders. A second strike. A third, slower, deliberate.

    Taranis didnot cry out.

    The man loomed. “You want to fight the leaders sons? Try again, and we will gut the wolves that raised you. Make you skin them yourself.”

    That stopped him.

    His vision blurred. He tasted blood his or someone else’s he wasn’t sure but then a shadow blocked the light.

    Solaris.

    He stepped forward, fists clenched but low.

    “You will kill him like this,” Solaris said.

    “Hes still breathing,” the overseer growled. “Let the beast learn his place.”

    “Hes not a beast.” Solaris growled

    Silence.

    “I have seen beasts. This ones still human.”

    That day, there were no more beatings. But no food either.

    Night fell cold. Taranis curled beside the embers, shivering.

    Footsteps. He didnot lift his head. If they came to hurt him, so be it.

    Something thudded beside him. Bread, wrapped in cloth.

    “Its Still warm,” Solaris muttered. “I stole it before dinner. Donot die. Not yet.”

    “it’s good I don’t intend to” Taranis took the bread in both hands. The warmth bled into his finger as he stared at the fire. There was a time hed healed a bird, mended his brothers broken arm. Even healed his brother but now He touched his collar.

    “I will escape. I will kill them all,’ he whispered.

    His family was a fading memory. The names Rayne, Drax, Draven, Lore blurred in his mind.

    Then he heard a howl. “Thats Silver,” he whispered.” Thats Boldolph. And Morrigan. They stayed near.”

    Men came. They dragged him to a tree marked by rope and tied his hands above his head. Children threw scraps at his face. Laughter. Rotten food.

    A man approached. Large, green-eyed, wrapped in furs.

    “Slave, you will stay here overnight. No food for two days for daring to touch my son,” he said. “Twenty lashes if you try anything.”

    Taranis bowed his head. He knew not to speak. Not to fight.

    As they walked away, he remained in silence, bound and bruised.

    “Two days,” the man said to a woman. “No food. No water. Do not tend his wounds.”

    The coals glowed nearby.

    “Make him walk it,” said a boy named Root. They prodded Taranis toward hot stones.

    He resisted.

    “Please don’t make me’ he pleaded his hands rebound and a tether held by another boy.

    “Walk,” another growled.

    A younger boy smirked as he stepped across the coals unfazed.

    “Hes not normal,” whispered Calor. “Is that the one the enemy fears?”

    ‘He speaks with wolves. And dragons,” the Seer answered.

    “Bring our best fighter,” the leader ordered. “Let them fight.”

    They dragged Taranis, barely conscious, to the firelit circle. The crowd formed in a crooked ring.

    Barefoot, bruised, he stood in the dirt. His collar scraped with every breath.

    Rukar, the clans champion, stepped forward. Twice his size. A necklace of teeth. Leather-wrapped fists.

    “Fight,” the elder barked.

    No weapons. No mercy.

    The first punch knocked him flat. The second split his lip.

    Thunder cracked. Lightning danced.

    “Come on, exile,” someone jeered. “Show us your curse.”

    But Taranis rolled. Rukars foot slammed into a stone instead of ribs.

    Taranis launched upward, shoulder-first into Rukars knee. The brute staggered.

    Dirt in the eyes. A headbutt. Teeth bared like a wolf.

    Rukar swung. Another blow grazed Taranis temple. Blood poured.

    This was not about victory.

    It was about survival.

    He twisted low, locking Rukars arm. A snap echoed. The champion fell, howling.

    Silence.

    Taranis knelt over him, ready to strike.

    He didn’t move. He just stood

    Bloodied. Shaking. Alive.

    The Seers voice broke the silence. “The wolves taught him well.”

    Taranis bowed to the master, kneeling as he had once knelt to his father.

    “Take him to the tree,” the leader said. “Hes now a warrior-slave. He will earn his freedom in battle. But punishment for attacking my son still stands.”

    They resecured him to the tree, pain burning through every limb.

    Later that night, Solaris approached with broth. His father watched.

    “You are a warrior-slave now,” Solaris said. “They will send you to war.”

    Taranis did not answer.

    He just drank the broth and stared into the fire.

    Copyright EL Hewitt

  • After the Duel

    After the Duel

    A Fireside Conversation

    The courtyard had long emptied. The ash of the fire pits still glowed faintly, casting soft light on stone walls and weary limbs.

    Taranis sat alone, legs stretched, a jug of broth in one hand,. the other flexing and sore from the clash with Boldolph.

    The crack of staffs still echoed in his bones.

    Footsteps approached not boots, but clawed paws. Heavy, padded, unmistakable.

    Boldolph.

    Without a word, the old wolf-man knelt beside him, a strip of clean linen in hand. He took Taranis’s wrist and began to bind the bruises, slow and methodical, like a ritual done a hundred times.

    “You didn’t hold back,” Taranis said after a moment.

    “You didn’t ask me to.”

    The silence between them was old, familiar. Like the stillness before a storm. Or the hush before a boy became a warlord.

    “I needed them to see I bleed too,” Taranis muttered, wincing as the linen tightened. “That I fall. That I get back up.”

    Boldolph grunted.

    “They already know you bleed,” he said. “They just needed to see you still feel it.”

    Taranis looked toward the sky. Smoke trailed like threads into the blackness. One dragon circled high above, a quiet sentinel.

    “I keep thinking,” he said, “about when I was exiled. Alone in the wilds. All I had was that storm inside me and the promise that no one was coming.”

    He looked down at the staff beside him.

    “And now… now there’s you. Solaris. Lore. Drax. Rayne. Even Draven. I have everything I never thought I would. And I don’t know how to hold it without crushing it.”

    Boldolph didn’t speak at first. Just poured a second jug of broth and handed it to him.

    Then he said, low and hoarse:
    “Every beast that’s ever bared teeth knows fear. Not of pain. Of losing what it’s fought to protect.”

    He paused, eyes distant.

    “I was exiled once too. Long before you were born. I clawed through snow and silence, not knowing if I was cursed or chosen. I still don’t.”

    Taranis turned to him.

    “You stayed. Even cursed. Even as a wolf.”

    Boldolph nodded.

    “Because someone had to. And because I believed that one day, the one I guarded would understand the weight of the fire he carried.”

    The flames crackled beside them. Taranis took a slow sip of broth.

    “I understand it now.”

    Boldolph gave a grunt soft, almost approving. Then he stood, stretched, and turned toward the shadows.

    “You’re not alone anymore, High Warlord,” he said. “Stop trying to fight like you are.”

    Then he was gone, back into the night, tail flicking behind him like a whisper of old magic.

    Taranis sat a while longer.

    Then he smiled.

    Not like a warlord. Not like a weapon.

    Like a man who had bled, fallen, and been lifted again by the hand of a wolf.

    Thank you for reading.© 2025 Emma Hewitt / StormborneLore. All rights reserved.Unauthorized copying or reproduction of this content is prohibited.

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