Tag: Chronicles of Drax

Drax Stormborne: The Night of Hollow Fires

Pennocrucium was dying.The fort that once rang with steel and Latin orders now lay quiet under a bruised evening sky. The last of the Roman banners hung in the wet like torn skin. The gold stitching dull and heavy with rain.

Fires in the watchtowers had burned down to ash. Barracks stood open. Doors unbarred.No sentries.No horn.No empire.Drax stood in the centre of the courtyard, gloved hands behind his back, cloak dark with rain.

He could still see where the eagle standard had stood, planted in the earth like a promise. He had bled beneath that symbol. Killed beneath it. Buried men beneath it.

Defended it long after others began to whisper that Rome no longer had the strength to defend itself.Now the standard lay in the mud.He let out a slow breath.

“This is how it ends,” he said quietly. “Not with fire. With retreat.”A few of his men were still with him. Not many. Veterans. The ones too loyal or too stubborn to walk away until ordered.

“Praefect,” Maren said, stepping to his side. Rain had plastered the boy’s hair to his face, and his jaw worked the way it always did . When he was circling fear and pretending not to feel it. “The last wagons are packed. They’re taking the southern road to Viroconium before dark.”

“Good,” Drax said. His voice stayed even. He didn’t look at his son. “They’ll be safer south.”Maren hesitated.

“What about us? Us.Not the cohort. Not the banner. Us.” Drax let the word settle in his chest.

“We’re not going south,” he said.Maren swallowed.

“Are we going after them?”

“No,” Drax said. “We’re going home.”The boy didn’t answer, but he understood. Drax saw it in the way the tension left his shoulders and something else took its place.

Not ease. Something older. Something like hunger.Thunder rolled low over the Chase.Beyond the walls, the land lay open and dark. The tree line a ragged edge against a sky. That hadn’t decided yet if it meant to rain or break clear. Mist gathered low over the fields in pale bands.

The air smelled of smoke from scattered farmsteads and peat fires. The smoke that drifted up on this night, every year, since before Rome ever named this place.

Spirit night.Nos Galan Gaeaf.The first night of winter. Drax looked north, toward the low hills and the mist and the deep-breathing dark of the land that raised him.

“Home,” he said.Then he walked into the new winter.

© 2025 E. L. Hewitt / StormborneLore. All rights reserved. Unauthorized copying or reproduction of this work is prohibited.

To read more about Drax please see The Chronicles of Drax

November 2, 2025
Secrets of the Western Marches: A Tale of War and Loyalty

The dawn broke pale and brittle over the Western Marches. Mist clung to the hillsides like the remnants of a long-forgotten battle. The scent of wet earth hung thick in the air.

Drax Stormborne rode alone, the wolf badge at his breast glinting faintly in the weak light. Each hoof beat a steady rhythm against the quiet of the land.

Reports had come from the southern villages. Whispers of movement along the coast, smuggled supplies disappearing into the night, and the black shields stirring in secret. Rome called it rebellion. Drax called it preparation.

He paused at the ridge, scanning the valley below. The smoke curled from chimneys, thin and innocent. Yet he saw in it the same threads of tension that had always followed his family. Every glance, every movement, was a calculation an unspoken war between loyalty, law, and blood.

A courier approached, riding hard across the hill track. Drax reined in his horse. The rider’s eyes were wide with urgency, breath steaming in the cold morning.

“High Sheriff,” the courier gasped, bowing slightly. “The exiles… they’ve moved. South, toward the old Roman fort. But there are… signs. Traps, and sentries placed where none should be.”

Drax’s jaw tightened. He dismounted slowly, brushing mud from his cloak. “And our men?”

“Silent,” the rider said. “They wait, as you instructed. Patient. Watching.”

Drax nodded, feeling the familiar weight of responsibility press upon him. Patience, observation, action the long game. His thoughts flickered to Taranis, chained in distant Rome. Memories of the oath that bound him not just to the Empire, but to family. To storm.

He turned to the courier. “See to it that no one moves without my signal. Keep the villages safe. Let Rome believe all is still. But let our shadow fall across the fort when the time is right. The storm will not wait forever.”

Lightning fractured across the distant sky, a whisper of thunder rolling over the hills. Drax lifted his gaze and felt it stir through him, golden and alive. The storm was patient, and so would he be.

For when the winds finally tore through the land, nothing not even Rome would withstand it.

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

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October 10, 2025
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.”

October 7, 2025
The Weight of Emberhelm

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

October 7, 2025