Rest your weary head, sweet child, For our lord and his men stand guard. Fear not the shadows, hush your mind They hold the dark ones far behind.
Sleep now, my boy, for dawn draws near, The Day of Selection is almost here. When the High Lord walks among the brave, To choose the ones with hearts unshaved.
Rise, my child, today you train, Chosen by the Warlord through ash and rain. He sees in you a warrior’s light So heed no fear, for he brings no fright.
He is kind, though forged in fire, A stormborne soul who lifts you higher. Stand tall, young one, your time is come— To walk the path, to beat the drum.
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.
The sun dipped low over the hills, turning the sky the colour of old bronze. A warm wind blew across the half-built hillfort, stirring the campfire embers and the occasional ego.
Out from the shadow of the forge strutted Drax, shoulders broad, beard wild, and eyes gleaming with mischief.
“I’m riding Pendragon,” he announced to no one and everyone. “You can’t be the only rider, runt.”
Taranis, seated by the fire with a hunk of roasted meat in hand, didn’t even flinch. He just raised an eyebrow. “Oh, I’m sure Pendragon will love that.”
From the ridge above, the mighty dragon shifted. Pendragon, ancient and noble, snorted in what can only be described as pre-emptive disappointment.
Next to him, Tairneanach. The younger storm dragon, lowered his head as if already bracing for whatever chaos was about to unfold.
Drax clapped his hands. “Let’s fly, beasts!”
“Hey Pendragon, Tairneach,” Taranis called, struggling not to laugh. “Drax thinks he’s got wings.”
With an exaggerated swagger. Drax tried to climb up Pendragon’s massive side promptly slipping and landing flat on his back with a grunt.
Pendragon groaned like a disgruntled horse and used his wing like a shovel. As he started lifting Drax back onto the saddle with a firm thwap.
“Thank you!” Drax wheezed, trying to sit upright. “See? We’re bonding!”
Pendragon gave Tairneanach a long look. The younger dragon’s eyes gleamed. The mischief had begun.
With a mighty roar, the dragons launched into the sky, wings tearing through the clouds. At first, it was majestic. Drax whooped with delight, arms raised, his braids flying.
“This is incredible!” he bellowed. “I am one with the storm!”
And then Pendragon did a barrel roll.
Drax did not.
He flew off the saddle like a sack of meat and bellowed curses all the way down.
“OH YOU BLOODY SCALY!”
Before he could hit the ground. Tairneanach swooped in like a feathered bolt of lightning. Catching Drax by the back of his tunic with a precise claw.
“Thanks!” Drax wheezed again, now dangling like a trussed boar over a bonfire.
But the game wasn’t over.
Pendragon arced around and opened his claws mid-air. Tairneanach, with a playful screech, tossed Drax into the air like a sack of barley.
“WHAT IN THE STONE-FORSAKEN” Drax spun mid-air.
Pendragon caught him.
Then tossed him again.
Taranis stood below, hands on hips, watching the two dragons play catch with his brother.
“This is fine,” he muttered. “Completely normal.”
The wolves Boldolph and Morrigan lay nearby watching with what only be described as smug amusement. Morrigan even wagged her tail once.
Up above, Drax was shouting at both dragons.
“NOT THE EARS! I NEED THOSE! I’M A COMMANDER, DAMMIT!”
Eventually, they deposited him gently but with zero dignity onto a hay bale just outside the fort walls. He rolled off, dizzy, covered in ash, and missing one boot.
Taranis walked over and offered him a hand.
“Still think you’re a rider?”
Drax groaned. “I think… I’ll stick to walking.”
As Taranis helped him up. Pendragon landed behind them with a smug puff of smoke. while Tairneanach gave a playful chuff and nudged Drax’s remaining boot onto his head.
They came in mist, in blood-wrought rage, Across the vale, like beasts uncaged. But we stood where thunder walked, Where dragons soared,
and stormwinds talked.
My blade was not of iron born, But forged in exile, grief, and scorn. Each swing a vow, each cry a flame, Each drop of blood a brother’s name.
The wolves ran silent, swift, and black, With fire and frost upon their track. Boldolph’s howl split sky from bone, While Morrigan’s eyes turned hearts to stone.
And high above, the storm unfurled, Two dragons circled round the world. Pendragon roared with fire’s breath, While Tairneanach sang deathless death.
Lore called the old names from the flame, And Drax, my blood, carved through the shame.
Together we storm’s chosen three Unleashed the wrath no foe flee.
Yet still I asked, mid blade and cry, “Must kin be lost so we rise?” But fate gave silence, not reply And storms don’t pause to question why.
Now all is still. The earth, it weeps. Our fallen sleep in warrior’s sleep. The skies remember what we gave. The Stormborne rose and stormed the grave.
The fire cracked and spat, its glow painting the blood-stained earth in amber and shadow. Smoke curled into the sky, mixing with the iron-rich scent of blood, sweat, and scorched heather. Around the blaze, three brothers sat warriors of old blood, each marked by time, loss, and prophecy.
Taranis sat with his legs folded, sword across his lap. His great frame bent slightly ahead as if burdened by ghosts. At eighteen, he already bore the presence of a myth. His grey eyes, like the storm itself, reflected both silence and fury. He had not returned as a boy. He had returned as legend.
Beside him sat Drax, once the fiercest of the elder siblings. His frame scarred but unbowed, his voice deeper and darker than memory allowed. Across from them was Lore, the quietest of the three thinner. More thoughtful his staff carved with runes from the old tongue. His breath rose in the chill air like whispered scripture.
Drax poked the fire absently with a stick.
“Draven went missing,” he said finally, breaking the silence. “So did Rayne. Last we heard, a group of blackclaw warriors was seen not far from their camp. We hope they’re still alive.”
Taranis looked up sharply. “And Father?”
“Fever and war,” Drax answered, voice low. “Three winters past. But he saw the sky darken before he died. He knew the storm was waking. He knew you would return.”
Taranis stared into the fire, jaw clenched. “He died thinking I was a curse.”
Lore leaned ahead. “He died knowing you were the key. He just didn’t live long enough to see the lock.”
The wind passed softly through the broken trees around them, carrying the scent of rain and ash. The brothers sat in silence for a while longer. No one had the heart to speak of the others they’d buried. Too many names. Too few fires.
Drax rose slowly and raised his drinking horn to the stars.
“Now we step into a new age,” he said. “Brothers bow to the true leader of the Stormborne clan.”
Taranis blinked. “What?”
“You’re the High Warlord now,” Lore said, smiling faintly. “I stay the Flame keeper. Drax… he commands the Blood bound. These aren’t boasts. They’re burdens.”
Taranis stood, slowly, as if weighed down by every step. The firelight cast monstrous shadows behind him.
“Is there anyone left?” he asked.
Drax nodded. “Some. Hiding in the Wychbury caverns. Scattered through the old marshes. A few loyal to the name. Most think we’re dead.”
Lore lifted his staff and traced the air. Sparks flickered from the fire. “You carry the name now. You carry us all.”
Taranis exhaled. “Fights are breaking out around us. Tribes testing borders. Raiders from across the sea. This wasn’t my first battle since exile.”
Drax frowned. “What do you mean?”
Taranis smirked. “Did you ever hear of the boy who walked out of a siege. Leaving only one man alive to tell the tale?”
Lore narrowed his eyes. “That was you?”
“I was ten,” Taranis said. “Found myself in Pict lands. A village took me in bark bread and bone broth, but they gave freely. Raiders came. Painted in bone ash. Serpent fangs. I stood between them and the fire.”
“And you fought?”
“I didn’t just fight,” Taranis said quietly. “I became something else. They called me ghost. One man I spared to carry the tale. Word of a storm-child spread fast. I moved on before the dead were buried.”
“You fought like a god out there today,” Drax said, his voice softer now. “The storm moved with you. Boldolph and Morrigan at your side. Pendragon and Tairneanach overhead. You were prophecy.”
“I was survival,” Taranis replied. “I fought because I had no choice. The gods didn’t give me power. They gave me fire and asked me to burn for it.”
Lore’s eyes flicked upward. “And burn you did.”
Taranis nodded. “But now… now I need more than fire. I need people. A clan. A home.”
Drax drank deeply from his horn. “Then let’s build one. Three brothers. Three lands. One name.”
Taranis looked between them. “Where?”
“Where we once stood,” Lore said. “But different. You, in the east on the high hills of Malvern, where the sky remembers you. Drax, in the west near the marshes, to guard the old trails. I will hold the centre, near the stone circle. The fire will not die.”
Taranis slowly nodded. “Then we rebuild. Not as children of the stone but as fathers of the bronze.”
Lore smiled. “The Neolithic dies with tonight’s embers. From now, we shape flame and forge blade.”
“We become what they feared we would be,” Drax said. “Stormborne. Eternal.”
Taranis reached out and grasped their arms one brother to each hand. “We lead together.”
The fire roared.
Part II: The Storm Remembers Later, as the night deepened, Taranis sat with his back to a tree. Boldolph rested his head on Taranis’s leg. The great black wolf was still and watchful, his red eyes scanning the shadows. Morrigan curled near the fire, pale as snowfall, her ears twitching at every distant noise.
“Do you think they’re truly gone?” Taranis whispered.
Lore didn’t answer at first. He simply watched the flames. “No one is ever truly gone. Not in our line. Some names survive in flesh. Others in fire.”
“And the enemy?” Drax asked.
“Still out there,” Lore said. “Still watching. The Saxons come. The Romans return. But we… we will be ready.”
Taranis stared into the night. “I never wanted to be leader.”
“That’s exactly why you should be,” Drax said. “Those who crave the crown often destroy the land they wear it on.”
“We carve new paths,” Lore said. “Not in stone. Not in blood. But in memory and meaning.”
Morning light rose over the battlefield. The dead were buried, their names sung into the mist. Taranis, Drax, and Lore stood before the hill where they would build their future.
Three brothers.
Three keeps.
One storm.
“I’ll raise warriors,” Taranis said. “Not just fighters but those who stand for the forgotten.”
“I’ll raise shields,” Drax replied. “Those who know honour and vengeance.”
“I’ll raise stories,” Lore said. “And through them, we will never be lost again.”
Boldolph howled once deep and mournful. Morrigan joined in, her voice carrying across the valley like wind through bone.
Above them, high in the clouds, Pendragon and Tairneanach circled not as beasts of war, but guardians of legend.
And so, the Bronze Age of the Stormborne began. Not with kings or crowns, but around a fire, carved in blood and rebuilt in hope.
StormborneLore 