Chapter One

Chapter 1

Men of the Shadows

From the dim red dawn of Creation From the fogs of timeless Time Came we, the first great nation, First on the upward climb.

Savage, untaught, unknowing, Groping through primitive night, Yet faintly catching the glowing, The hint of the coming Light.

Ranging o’er lands untraveled, Sailing o’er seas unknown Mazed by world-puzzles unraveled, Building our land-marks of stone.

Vaguely grasping at glory, Gazing beyond our ken Mutely the ages’ story Rearing on plain and fen.

See, how the Lost Fire smolders, We are one with the eons’ must. Nations have trod our shoulders, Trampling us into the dust.

We, the first of the races, Linking the Old and New – Look, where the sea-cloud spaces Mingle with ocean-blue.

So we have mingled with ages, And the world-wind our ashes stirs, Vanished are we from Time’s pages, Our memory? Wind in the firs.

Stonehenge of long-gone glory Sombre and lone in the night, Murmur the age-old story How we kindled the first of the Light.

Speak night-winds, of man’s creation, Whisper o’er crag and fen, The tale of the first great nation, The last of the Stone Age men.



Sword met sword with clash and slither.

“Ailla! A-a-ailla!” rising on a steep pitch of sound from a hundred savage throats.

On all sides they swarmed upon us, a hundred to thirty. Back to back we stood, shields lapped, blades at guard. Those blades were red, but corselets and helmets, too, were red. One advantage we possessed, we were armored and our foes were not. Yet they flung themselves naked to the fray with as fi