A vibrant illustration of a dragon, embodying the whimsical spirit of the story ‘A Ballad of Bronze-Age Bouncing’.
(A Ballad of Bronze-Age Bouncing)
The dragon smirked and gave a wink, Then launched him skyward in a blink. A loop-de-loop, a spiral twirl Drax flailed like a dizzy girl.
“I’ve got this!” he cried, “I’m born to fly!” Pendragon laughed and rolled the sky. Down he tumbled, flapping fast Till Tairneanach caught him at last.
Oh mighty Drax, with sword so wide, Declared, “It’s time for me to ride!” He climbed Pendragon’s scaly back, And shouted loud, “Let’s hit the track!”
The dragons chuckled, playing catch, With Drax the ball in every match. He swore and shouted, “Put me down!” While Taranis watched with half a frown.
“Next time,” said Lore with knowing grin, “Just stick to marching less of a spin.” But Drax just grinned and gave a cheer, “Best flight I’ve had all flaming year!
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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.
A vibrant abstract artwork featuring a bold central pattern surrounded by colorful concentric lines.
They say the sky cracked open the morning he returned.
A low thunder rolled across the hills, though no lightning had yet touched the earth. The mist lay thick upon Malvern Hill, curling over the stones like the breath of ancient spirits. Somewhere between the bracken and the stormclouds, a shape emerged not quite man, not quite myth.
A fierce black wolf howls against a vibrant blue background, embodying the spirit of Taranis Stormborne’s journey in ‘The Return of Stormfire.’
Taranis Stormborne had come home.
He walked as one who had been reforged, each footstep heavy with memory and fire. Ten winters had passed since he’d been cast out as a cursed boy. But now he stood seven feet tall, shoulders broad as yew trunks. his eyes glinting with the steel-grey of a storm’s eye. His breath steamed in the cool dawn, yet he wore no furs. He needed none.
To his right padded Boldolph, the black wolf, massive and scarred, his red eyes burning like coals.
To his left prowled Morrigan, white as frost, her gaze sharp as carved bone.
An eye-catching illustration of a dragon intertwined with vibrant foliage, showcasing the magical essence of StormborneLore.
Above them circled the watchers of the sky two dragons cloaked in storm. Tairneanach, the spirit of thunder, and Pendragon, King of Flame. Their wings stirred the clouds. Their roars were hidden in the rumble overhead.
No trumpet called. No banner flew. But the mountain knew.
So did the tribe.
The watchmen were first to see him — one dropped his spear, the other fled into the trees. Word spread like fire through dry grass: “The Stormborne has returned.”
By the time Taranis reached the outer ridge, a ring of warriors had formed. Men he once called brothers. Men who remembered the boy and now beheld the storm.
His father was gone. His mother, buried in silence.
But Lore was there the eldest, proud and sorrow-worn.
So was Drax once cruel, now haunted.
And others less forgiving.
They stepped ahead, hands on stone blades, fury in their eyes. The past had not been buried with the bones of the dead.
StormborneLore 