The Invasion Of The Sombers

At the end, appendices have been added with general information about Frienia, a description of the races and a catalogue of characters so that it can be of help to those readers who would like to complement the information provided in the narration of the novel.

Acknowledgements

First of all, I would like to thank my wife and my two children as regards their patience for having endured without protesting, all the hours I have devoted to this work, as well as the support and advice I have been given.

Secondly, I would like to thank Lucia Arca, Sarima and Antonia Cuenca for having introduced me to each other and for their enormous collaboration, professionalism and friendliness, making this publication possible and, above all, improving it.

I would also like to thank David Palacios and Juan Manuel Carmona for their courage in being the first to dare to read this novel to the end and for having given me their sincere opinion and wise suggestions.

Nor can I forget to thank the people of Olmedilla de Alarcón for a good part of the inspiration that has allowed me to write this work, having taken advantage of my holidays in this beloved locality to write most of these pages.

I also want to thank the Bellvitge neighborhood and the city of L'Hospitalet de Llobregat from the bottom of my heart for all the support I received, both from my neighbors and friends, and from the city council and the city's libraries. Moreover, I add a very special thanks to Gemma Isern for all her help.

Another outstanding gratitude to Fran Hernaiz who, with his accurate suggestions and corrections has provoked a good part of this fourth edition.

I could not fail to thank all the readers who, for one reason or another have decided to go into this book, and especially all those who, at the markets where I offer my book, decide to buy it when they realize that I am an up and coming author.

And finally, I would like to thank all the friends and family who have not stopped supporting me and encouraging me to work on the publication of this book.

For the English version, I want to thank ZionXVI for all his effort and great work in translation. And to Olga Núñez her help in the revision of it.

Synopsis

After a century-old war between humans and orcs, both sides are forced to form an alliance to defend themselves from the sombers, a race descended from the predominantly evil elves who struggle to invade and subdue their territories. To seal this alliance, the two heirs of the kingdoms, the brave human prince Syriel and the beautiful orc princess Lirieth promise each other marriage and, against all odds begin a romance of sincere love.

The dark ones undertake an expedition to lands full of dangerous creatures to capture dragons and thus to gain a clear advantage. The alliance does the same to avoid it or also find dragons to match forces. Syriel and Lirieth command this mission, in the course of which they must overcome a mutiny of their dwarf vassals, the attack of a gigantic snake, ambushes of the dark elves and assaults of strange and dangerous creatures.

Syriel must also face the painful suspicion of a perverse betrayal of his fiancée, who seems to have made a pact with the invaders several years ago.

In addition, they meet the White Magician, one of Mazorik's seven disciples, who informs Syriel that he owns two of the objects in the Dragon Armor, and hands him another one that belonged to his grandfather. The White Magician urges the prince to collect the seven magical objects which constitute the powerful armor, as he suspects that someone with not very good intentions also wants to do it.

Both the shadow elf and the alliance's troops gain control of a group of dragons. War is already inevitable: the sombers will initiate an imminent invasion of the orcs' and humans' kingdoms.

About two thousand years ago, a perverse magician named Mazorik sets in motion one of the worst black magic spells that ever existed. With the seven hearts of each of the dragon's races, he creates the seven jewels of light, which have the property of absorbing the essences of the beings who possess them for seven years. To do so, the magician takes a disciple from each of the civilized species that populate Frienia: elves, humans, orcs, sombers, dwarfs, médium and giants, whom he deceives with the false promise of putting an end to all wars.

With the seven jewels already impregnated with the essences of the seven species, he intends to set them in seven objects that will make up the Dragon Armor, which will grant him unlimited power, obtaining the immanence of each race, as well as its total submission, which will establish him as the supreme emperor of all the known earth. But one of his disciples discovers him and manages to thwart his abject plans.

The two threads of argument are intertwined in this novel, leading to a surprising ending.

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Prelude: The blood and death covenant

Frienia, year 1808 of the second era.

Between Barvian, the somber's fief and the orc kingdom of Teberion was the forest of Eternal Night. Its trees with large, leafy branches barely allowed the rays of light to pass through, and so a faint, perennial darkness took hold of its immense extension. It was an ideal place for different creatures to meet clandestinely without fear of being discovered.

Snaking through the forest was the Aquos River, the largest river in all of Frienia, which marked the border between the two kingdoms. Its flow was so voluminous that during a good part of the year it could only be crossed by the Rasen fords, at the south of the forest.

In one of its darkest areas, a small médium rogue breed wandered in search of the prized monarch mushrooms, good sized milk caps that, cooked skillfully, became one of the tastiest dishes in all of Frienia, especially for the médium ones.

Bellamir, the mushroom collector was not used to coming alone to this forest, as it was one of the most dangerous, both for the beings and vermin that inhabited it and for the kind of individuals that used to frequent it. He was usually accompanied by his inseparable friend Frodin; however, that day he was indisposed due to an indigestion provoked by cakes and decided to venture on his own.

Just when Bellamir had found a considerable colony of appreciated mushrooms, after having smelled its aroma that he perceived delicious, he heard a nearby click that made him hide from sight to observe and veil his mind as very few ones knew how to do.

A woman of haughty beauty and from the somber race waited impatiently and with evident signs of nervousness. She had the slight impression that she was being watched and not by the other sorceress she was waiting to meet with, precisely. The somber retained the characteristic features of the ancient elves, but with the typical more haggard tonality in the skin of the sombers. Her long black hair, which reached down to her waist, and her grey and luminous eyes stood out on a face that was not lacking in beauty, although with marked features that suggested a pronounced evil.

She did an exhaustive mental search around and found nothing but numerous insects and small vermin. Nor did her sense of smell alert her to anything threatening or out of the ordinary, and she endeavored to appear calmer.

Suddenly, an almost imperceptible burst preceded the appearance of a slender and regal figure. The female Orcus' features of the new appeared, although of a singular beauty natural, denoted a remarkable security and poise. Without saying anything, she looked defiantly into the eyes of the other magician who was waiting for her.

"You are late, Lirieth, daughter of Gulrath." said the somber one pretending as much calm as possible.

"I've come when I've made up my mind, Elenir, daughter of Nigriel." replied the female Orcus with a certain aggressiveness adding shortly afterwards: "I see you very nervous, you won't want to back out of our deal, will you?"

"Not at all! I don't regret our pact. Come on! Let's get this over with as soon as possible," defended herself the dark one.

They approached each other and, discovering daggers which competed in their luxurious ornamentation, both exchanged a deep cut on the palms of their hands, and when they joined them together, they pronounced in unison:

"These cuts symbolize the sacred pact of blood and death between sorceresses that binds us with our own life to the fulfillment of what was agreed. Only the commitment will be broken by mutual agreement or by the death of one of us. If the scar were to bleed before disappearing, it would indicate that one part had lost its life, freeing the other one from any obligation. In turn, the sign of betrayal will be revealed through intense pain in the hand for the betrayed and fulminant death for the betrayer."

A blinding light emerged from the united hands of the magicians and the pact of blood and death was irremediably sealed.

Both women were stunned for a few seconds, staggering and making a great effort not to fall vanished. Surely the two would have collapsed to the ground if they had not held their hands.

Little by little, they regained their regal composure. Elenir was the first to show herself restored.

"Well, it's done, Your Highness. It has been a real pleasure to see you again." she said to Lirieth in a sneering tone. "I will count the seconds until our paths cross again." she said accompanying her gesture with an ironic bow.

"I will wait impatiently, my dear, too." concluded Lirieth, not worrying about the disdain she showed.

The miracle workers separated and disappeared with clicks, leaving the forest submerged in a sepulchral silence and in a darkness that, together with the cold of the night, they would freeze the bones of any creature that roamed there.

The little rascal watched the scene in terror, even though he knew they could not have detected him with his ability to camouflage himself physically and mentally, including for the most powerful sorcerers.

Although he could only hear fragments of the conversation that coupled with the similarity of the voices made it difficult for him to understand what they were saying, he captured enough to intuit that his death would have been inevitable if he would had been discovered.

He waited a long time before daring to leave his hiding place to get away as quickly as possible from that location and return to his quiet and safe village, so that he forgot the succulent colony of mushrooms he had discovered, as well as those he had already collected, which were also abandoned in the undergrowth.

Prologue

Frienia, year 1815 of the second era.

The war between humans and orcs, which had lasted several centuries, was about to end. The dwarves had helped humans more by obligation to the vassal oath than by direct involvement in the conflict. So Ankar, the current dwarf king, despite his declared aversion to the orcs had kept the minimum contribution of soldiers to which he was strictly bound.

After the last great battle in the vicinity of Belquecia, capital of the human kingdom of Delfia, where the orcs came out victorious, King Orc Gulrath, instead of forcibly subduing the defeated, surprised the human king Jorion by offering him an alliance sealed by the marriage of their two first-borns : Princess Lirieth, heiress of Teberion, and Prince Syriel, heir of Delfia.

This agreement became increasingly necessary for men and orcs, due to the thriving and devastating civilization of the sombers, who longed for total control of Frienia and for the enslavement of all races on earth. So, the human king had no choice but to accept the conditions of the orc king, and Syriel had no choice but to accept the will of his father.

Gulrath went so far as to reject on several occasions the offer of an alliance made to him by the dark ones in order to crush the humans, convinced that, once achieved, they would break their pact in order to subdue them as well.

The Orc king had long desired to ally himself with humans and the end of a war that favored more the of the sombers’ interests, by weakening the two enemy races, at the same time and in good measure. He also longed to reign in a time of peace where men and orcs lived and prospered in harmony, and this would only be possible if they united and achieved to defeat the sombers together.

Nigriel, king of the sombers, waited for the moment when men and orcs would wear each other away, so that he could finally strike the final blow that would leave them to their mercy. That moment, after the end of the war, seemed to be approaching, despite the fact that the dark sovereign would have liked the contest to have lasted even longer, since the forces of men and orcs, though weakened, in alliance would still be as powerful as their own hosts, but perhaps not for much longer…

The secret covenant

Frienia, year 1815 of the second era.

The majestic fortified city of Belquecia towered over a hill that dominated an area of several kilometers around.

It was not possible to attempt a surprise attack against it, since its high situation and the few natural features of all the surrounding lands made any army visible from all points of the horizon. At the east and on very clear days, one could see the Hope River, natural border with Teberion, kingdom of the orcs. Far to the west, too far even for the extraordinary eyesight of the elves to reach, was the Belquio Sea, to the north and south were valleys and flat lands where numerous villages and farms were settled, dominated by many noble fortresses of the high aristocracy.

The formidable outer walls of Belquecia would have the most powerful armies desist from attempting a siege against such a fortification, since the vast lands encircled by its walls included wells, orchards, and estates that guaranteed the city's self-sufficiency, practically indefinitely.

Right in the heart of the city stood the royal palace of Lorimar, the habitual residence of the Delfia royal family since immemorial times. The palace had four sturdy towers that rose to great heights, one in each of its corners, surrounded by beautiful gardens also enclosed by a solid wall that was interrupted, in the center of each side of the square that formed, by entrances strongly guarded by the brave royal guard.

The central palace consisted of five extensive floors with numerous rooms. From one of the most luxurious of them, Syriel, heir prince to the throne of Delfia looked through the window, heartbroken.

His mother, Clariel, descended from an ancient elf lineage, one of the few remaining, according to the wise historians. One of them was Baldrich, his mentor, who was also one of the few real elves still living in Delfia.

Syriel had cried only once in his twenty-three years of life, on the day of his mother's sad death after a long and painful illness that consumed her little by little, when he was only six years old.

Today, Syriel's eyes let tears escape again; tears of sorrow for seeing the decadence of the kingdom that his lineage had been reigning for so many centuries; tears of longing for an era of splendor where humans and elves lived in harmony and usually in peace, which he had only known through books and stories by his master Baldrich; And tears of resignation because he was forced to marry Lirieth, the heiress of the Orc's King, whom he imagined as horrible as stinking.

Syriel repressed the last tear as he saw the long retinue escorting the luxurious carriage carrying his future hated political family approach his palace. He had dressed in his most elegant clothes at his father's request to receive them, and he did not know what oppressed him more, whether the majestic, though uncomfortable clothes, or the uneasiness produced by the unnatural union that awaited him and which anguished him deeply.

Syriel girded himself at the waist with his elfic sword, Almafiel, which had shed so much orc blood, to surrender to the submission of the Orc king. He knew that soon he would raise it against the dark ones and he began to wish that the magic protection with which the elves had endowed it would cease to function in the next battle so that he would end its sad life once and for all.

The sword, which was one of the few material inheritances he had preserved from his ancestors, possessed unparalleled beauty. The brightness of its steel had not diminished with the passage of time nor its light weight, which together with its extraordinary hardness, turned it into a manageable and deadly weapon. Its edge was ornamented with some engravings in a strange writing, which formed magical words in an ancient language that no one could ever tell Syriel what they meant, but which endowed the sword with certain magical powers that on more than one occasion had saved the life of its owner.

But the most striking thing about the sword was its grip, which ended in a dragon head masterfully sculpted and ornamented with a gold-colored precious stone that stood out from the rest of the elements of the weapon. It consisted of an elongated gem of considerable size that a human hand could barely cover when wielding it. Syriel was told that once the jewel shone with its own light, but now it did so only by reflecting the rays of the sun.

He walked down the stairs to the entrance courtyard, standing next to his father. His slender figure of almost six feet high contrasted with his father's mediam height and rather chubby workmanship, and his mane, as blonde as it was long contradicted the king's scarcity of black hair as well. The only attribute that reflected Jorion's fatherhood in his first-born was the lively blue eyes they both had, the rest of the prince's features, undoubtedly semielphic had been inherited from the beautiful features of Clariel, his kind mother.

The royal chariot of the orcs stood in front of the reception retinue. The first to come down was Gulrath, who greeted his hosts politely. Shortly afterwards, Syriel saw, with dissimulated exasperation, how Gulrath was helping an orc woman of undetermined age, of considerable robustness and a rather unpleasant physiognomy to come down from the carriage, who gave him the most frightful smile Syriel had ever thought he could receive.

To the great relief of the royal suitor, Gulrath presented her as his wife Baldia. Suddenly, everyone looked at the prince as if expecting something from him, and Syriel remembered that the rules of courtesy bestowed upon him the great honor of helping the princess to descend from her chariot. However, he did not move until he felt a painful nudge from his own father, more with despair than with dissimulation.

He approached the door resignedly and extended his arm, they said almost inaudibly:

"Welcome, Your Highness."

A thin hand, with a pale, slightly greenish skin rested on his arm shyly, but firmly, and a warm beautiful voice mused:

"I thank you, Prince Syriel."

A silky white dress encircled a slender figure that dazzled everyone as she stepped out of the carriage. Her movements were firm, though not without grace.

Suddenly, the prince was surprised to see a face framed by lush black hair full of spirals, and a pretty smile adorning a prominent jaw with undeniable orc features, but not devoid of beauty in the eyes of a human. Not even the slight greenish tone of the skin of the young orc, similar in age to that of Syriel, prevented the prince from being amazed at the exotic appeal of the princess.

But what really plunged Syriel into the most unexpected of surprises were luminous green eyes, almost at his own height, in which he read a lively intelligence and an exceptional purity of heart.

The prince had inherited from his elfic ancestors the ability to read the souls of creatures of any kind through their eyes. This quality had never failed him and had always helped him to surround himself with collaborators and lieutenants of remarkable courage, intelligence, and insurmountable loyalty. It had also helped him to reject countless candidates to become his wife, in whom he had read the ambition and lack of good feelings that, unfortunately, increasingly characterized the human race.

Instead, in Lirieth's eyes he read the most beautiful that he had ever observed in any creature, except for the little that he already remembered from the magical and kind gaze of his mother.

Syriel took a while to recover from his surprise and when he kissed the hand of the princess which seemed soft and warm to the touch, he also noticed a pleasant fragrance of fresh flowers and wild, but not as if some perfume had been applied, but as if the aroma came from her own essence. Finally, Syriel invited her to show her the gardens of the palace, to which she gladly agreed with ill-concealed shyness.

King Jorion welcomed his royal guests and invited them into his palace, bidding them farewell to the young fiancés.

It was the custom of the princes to give a white mare of the purest race to their future wife on the day of the announcement of the engagement. Therefore, Syriel took Lirieth to the knights to give her the most perfect white mare he had ever seen. He feared that the equine would get angry with her, for only the wildest horse breeds were able to withstand the presence of the orcs. However, when he showed her the animal, he immediately noticed that not only would it be able to withstand Lirieth, but that it could also make a good connection with her, perhaps even as it had itself initiated with its loyal Night, a beautiful thoroughbred, black as the jet.

"Lirieth, I give you this mare called Luna Llena, which comes from the purest and most regal races, as you can see from the commitment we are about to make. I hope you will accept it and that it will be to your liking," said Syriel, more with resigned formality than with enthusiasm.

But the princess's response once again filled the human being with astonishment.

"Prince Syriel, let us leave traditions and speak clearly. I know that you feel obliged to sacrifice the rest of your life for the good of your people and I respect and admire you for it. However, I would like you to know that the idea of the wedding came from me, I proposed this union to my father and not because he wants to marry me with a beautiful human prince with blonde mane and eyes like the celestial sky, but because if our peoples do not unite against the sombers, we will all end up dead or enslaved by them. My father intended to make a covenant with your king that would not be like a surrender, but would not cease to be one after all. Nevertheless, to fight effectively against the dark requires much more, at least some minimal ties of complicity and even true friendship. Something like this can only be obtained from our peoples by giving a good example and that can only be done by the two of us."