The Bone Child Prologue: "Coldhome"
Coldhome - a small town in a strange and sad world
The Bone Child
By Tyler Morrison
Prologue: Coldhome
“On Coldhome,” by Vergio Fianto, the Aquiline Scrivener, translated by Hastel Dunnismirk, an old son of Grimmoer
Coldhome was a tiny village.
It lay on the outskirts of the Kingdom of Grimmoer, long ruined, and Grimm the King of Old was long dead. Coldhome overlooked the Giants’ Crater that Sunspar had made with the holy spear of Hallen-Gild, before he left the Spear and the entire World with all the other gods of the Westerlands. Thus the new name of this cruel continent was made: “Gods’ Abandon.”
The four barbarous tribes known as Harradwrath, Borgawnt, Tarkína, and Grinnosk were the last and bitter dregs of Grimm’s old armies. They fought each other on the Frost March and the wide, dry plains of the Great Dirt Desert, and even the savannahs of Lionmouth in the far Northheast of Gods’ Abandon. Those bastard sons of “soldiers” raided the former cities of Grimmoer on a daily basis. But not Coldhome. Coldhome remained safe.
For Coldhome lay at the end of the haunted tundras of Icewraith. It was situated such that it overlooked all of the Crater and the dead kingdoms built in the chasms below. It looked down on the lost Empire of Aquila, and Ashenvale beneath, and the first Kingdom of Cathwyn, and even Ulthan’s Bastion at Hengelfort.
You could almost see them all from Coldhome, or at least when the weather allowed. From its snowy perch, you could look down the Thousand Steps and see the rubble keeps, to the heaps of broken towers and fortresses and castles far below, from the jagged cliffs of the Crater to Ashenvale, and the Ashen Fields farther still, at the bottom of the Crater.
Brave adventurers sometimes still made the journey to the Aquiline temples, or to Ulthan’s Bastion in the center of Cathwyn, beyond Old Ashenvale’s kings. Some even ventured farther, underneath, to the rumored human kingdom underground, the dead Prince Athwyn’s final realm. Those above in Grimm’s old home called it “Grimmunder.” That kingdom too was almost gone, because of the stalking insects and worse below, for all dark creatures come out of pitch-black lairs.
So warriors and wanderers journeyed there and beyond for glory, fame, and the relics of the old kingdoms. They brought the relics home and traded them, objects of the lost empires, and older relics of metal, stone, and bone that the giants and the dwarves had left behind before they died. The bones of the dwarves and giants themselves fetched a pretty price.
And of course these fortune seekers, these bold men and women, sought after the white-silver and bright-gold trinkets and weapons the Pale Ones had scattered about above and below, before the Cavern Fae went deeper into the earth they hated, but in theory still ruled.
And there were rumors of worse things below the Decadent Court of Lord Halcyon and his Pale Ones. It was said that some dark gods had not left this side of the world, and others were just awakening, like the monsters beneath the waves in the Sea of Lotúna. These were NOT the gods who had fostered men, but those that consumed all in their path.
But these rumors were just that, whispers and hearsay, and probably myths besides. For if there were monstrous deities in the depths of the earth and the dark waters, why was the whole world not yet consumed? It was Gods’ Abandon, after all. Surely none of the old gods were left. Many humans certainly hoped so, and prayed so, to the Saints of Sorrow and the Eagle-Lord Emperors, and even to the Great Gone themselves.
But others thought the Light of Divinity would return, and that not all had become dark and cold and cruel in this World, even in these sad Lands. They prayed at the Shrines of Sacred Solace, the last True and Godly Church.
But men and women must seek their fortunes, wherever the white winds force them. Men and women would find their deaths or fight the Dark Things over the graves of those long dead. And a hale Child of Man...not a Hollow Child... would soon don bone and fight the Dark, as well. His fate was tied to the fortunes of all in the land. He would live, or he would die. It was not written yet.
But one child could soon be a boon to all others, and his end might be their Doom.