StormborneLore

Tag: Penn

  • The Eagle and the Storm

    The Eagle and the Storm

    Dawn crept slow over Cnocc, a thin gold edge behind the rain clouds. Mist clung to the standing stones, turning the world to shadow and breath.

    Drax waited alone within the circle, his Armour dark with dew. Around him, the forest held its silence not even the birds dared speak before the storm.

    A shape emerged from the trees. Bare-headed, cloak torn by wind, eyes bright with the same lightning that lived in the sea.

    “Taranis,” Drax said quietly.

    “Brother.”

    They faced each other across the stones, a dozen paces apart soldier and exile, lawman and outlaw, blood and storm.

    “You sent the boy,” Drax began. “You risked Rome’s wrath to deliver a letter. Why?”

    “Because words still travel where armies can’t,” Taranis replied. “And because you needed to see the truth before Rome writes it for you.”

    Drax’s hand went to the hilt at his belt, but he did not draw. “The truth is that you lead rebellion.”

    “The truth,” Taranis said, stepping closer, “is that Rome rots from within. You see it, even in Pennocrucium the taxes, the prisons, the wards rising against their own peacekeepers. You know their order is just another storm wearing iron.”

    “Law keeps the world from tearing itself apart.”

    Taranis smiled faintly. “Then tell me, brother which law spared our people?”

    The question hung like a blade between them.

    Drax’s voice dropped. “You’ll bring ruin on every soul north of the wall.”

    “And you’ll call it justice when the legions do it first.”

    Lightning cracked behind the hills, casting their faces in white fire. For a heartbeat, they were children again mud on their hands, the taste of rain on their tongues.

    Then it was gone.

    Drax exhaled slowly. “If I turn my back on Rome, they’ll come for my sons.”

    “Then send them to me,” Taranis said. “I’ll keep them safe and teach them what it means to be Stormborne.”

    Drax met his brother’s gaze, every oath and scar warring inside him. “You ask too much.”

    “I ask what blood demands.”

    The wind rose, carrying the scent of thunder and pine. Somewhere beyond the ridge, a horn sounded Roman, sharp and close.

    Taranis looked toward it, then back at his brother. “You didn’t come alone.”

    Drax’s jaw tightened. “I had no choice.”

    “You always had a choice.”

    He turned, cloak whipping in the wind, and vanished into the mist.

    Drax stood amid the stones, thunder rolling like a closing gate. For the first time in years, he no longer knew which storm he served.

    The horn still echoed when Drax turned toward the ridge.
    Rain came again sharp, cold, unending washing the footprints from the mud where his brother had stood.

    From the southern slope came the sound of Armour. The steady rhythm of Roman discipline: shields clashing, orders barked, hooves grinding stone.

    Centurion Varro rode up through the mist, helm crested, voice clipped.
    “Praefect! You were told to wait at the lower ford. Our scouts saw movement rebels, by the look.”

    Drax said nothing. His men shifted behind him, uneasy under the Centurion’s glare.

    Varro’s gaze swept the clearing. “You’ve been here long, sir?”

    “Long enough.”

    “Any sign of the outlaws?”

    Drax’s hand brushed the rain-darkened hilt of his sword. “None that concern Rome.”

    Varro frowned. “Sir?”

    “Withdraw your men to the ridge. If they move through the forest, they’ll spook what they can’t catch.”

    Varro hesitated, suspicion flickering behind his eyes. “The Governor will want a report.”

    “He’ll have one,” Drax said, voice like iron. “But not from you.”

    Varro opened his mouth, then thought better of it. He saluted stiffly and wheeled his horse. The soldiers followed, vanishing into the haze.

    When the last sound of their march had gone, Drax turned back to the standing stones. The mist seemed thicker now, the air charged and whispering.

    He drew his sword not for battle, but for memory. The blade caught a sliver of light and, for a heartbeat, reflected the spiral carved into the nearest stone.

    From the forest edge came a faint flicker of movement a figure, hooded and still. Not Taranis, but one of his kin. She raised her hand, palm out, the mark of the storm inked in black across her skin.

    A silent vow.

    Drax sheathed his sword. “Tell him,” he said quietly, though she not hear, “that I won’t be his enemy again.”

    The woman vanished into the fog.

    Behind Drax, Maren approached, cloak dripping. “Father… what will you tell Rome?”

    “The truth,” Drax said, mounting his horse. “Just not all of it.”

    As they rode back toward Pennocrucium, thunder rolled once more not from the sky, but from the earth itself. The storm was awake again.

    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 Drax please see The Chronicles of Drax

  • Unrest in the Lower Wards: A Roman Saga

    Unrest in the Lower Wards: A Roman Saga

    The rain had not stopped since Caerwyn. Each morning it slicked the cobblestones of the fort. washing dust and ash into the gutters, as though Rome cleanse itself of guilt.

    Praefect Drax Stormborne stood beneath the awning of the garrison, watching the centurions drill in the yard below. The sound of shields and iron echoed against the mist, rhythmic, hollow, and far too familiar.

    “Word from the coast?” he asked without looking.

    His aide the same grey-eyed veteran who had once served under him at Cannock stepped ahead. “None yet, sir. But reports spread through the camps. They say a ship found half-burned near the cliffs. No bodies. Just marks on the hull.”

    “Marks?”

    The man nodded. “A spiral carved deep into the wood. Like a storm-ring.”

    Drax’s hand tightened around the railing. The symbol of the old clan. The one Rome had forbidden.

    Behind him came the sound of boots lighter, hesitant. His second son, Maren, saluted awkwardly. “Father, the magistrate awaits. There’s unrest in the lower wards. They want judgment from the lawman.”

    “The lawman,” Drax murmured. “Tell them the law doesn’t bend to whispers.”

    “But it bends to Rome,” Maren said quietly.

    Drax turned, eyes hard. “Careful, boy.”

    The silence between them held the weight of unspoken things of oaths broken and storms returning. Drax looked at the lad and saw both his past and his punishment.

    Finally, he exhaled. “Your uncle stirs the seas. I’ll not have him stir the streets as well. We hold the line.”

    Maren hesitated, then stepped closer. “And if he calls us brother, not enemy?”

    Drax looked past him, toward the horizon where thunder still rolled over the coast. “Then I’ll answer him as both.”

    A horn sounded from the walls. Another patrol missing along the northern road.

    Drax drew his cloak, the Roman crimson dulled by rain. “Have the riders ready by dusk,” he said. “We go to Pennocrucium The Empire claim the law but the storm still knows my name.”

    The thunder rolled again, closer this time, shaking the banners loose from their poles. The banners of Pennocrucium hung limp in the rain Rome’s edge of order against the wild heart of Pennocrucium .”

    The rain eased to a whisper by dawn. Mist lay low over the road, a grey ribbon winding north through the pines.

    Drax rode at the front of the column, his cloak heavy with last night’s storm. The standards of Rome sagged in the wet, crimson turned dull and earth-brown.

    Behind him, twenty riders moved in silence. Men who had followed him through three campaigns and would follow him into a fourth. Even if none of them knew whose banner they truly served anymore.

    The track narrowed as they neared the Chase. Crows wheeled above, their cries lost in the fog. Somewhere beyond the mist lay Pennocrucium the old land, the hill once sacred to his kin. Before Rome built its roads through the heart of it.

    At his side, Maren broke the quiet. “They say the woods here are haunted.”

    “They are,” Drax said. “By memory.”

    The boy frowned, unsure if it was jest or truth.

    By noon, they reached the stone marker where the Roman paving gave way to mud and root. There Drax reined in, eyes narrowing at the shape half-buried in the verge. An old shield, blackened by time, its boss marked with the faint spiral of the Stormborne ring.

    “Leave it,” Drax murmured as one of the soldiers bent to lift it. “The dead have earned their ground.”

    From the treeline came the sound of a horn low, distant, old.
    Not Roman.

    The men stiffened. Maren’s hand went to his blade.

    Drax only listened. The tone carried memory, not threat a call. One he had not heard since he was young enough to run barefoot across the Chase. A day when he named the wind his brother.

    He turned to his son. “We camp here. No fires. No noise.”

    “Sir?”

    “They’ll come to us,” Drax said. “The Black Shields never forgot the way home.”

    As the mist thickened, he dismounted and placed a hand on the wet earth. Beneath his palm, the ground hummed faintly the old song of the storm returning.

    “If Taranis walks these woods,” he whispered, “then I’ll find him before Rome does.”

    Thunder rolled somewhere far off not from the sea this time, but from the hills.

    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 Drax please see The Chronicles of Drax