A fiction story involving Gorvan and the Iron Knights.

[Corwin Skyborn]

"Being the One" By Corwin Skyborn

In ancient times there lived Gorvan, who like so many others began as a simple lad from a simple farming hamlet. One day a battle beween a band of Iron Knights and a force of Demons spilled over into his gentle existance and shattered his life. As the Iron Knights and the Demons clashed, chaos was unleashed. Gorvan saw his father stagger out from the barn grappling with a Demon and barely managing to turn it's back towards an approaching Knight. As the Iron Knight spied the Demons back to him he charged and ended with a lunge. Before an instant had passed the Knights sword lashed out piercing the demons back and his unseen fathers chest. His Mother ran from the feeble shelter of their farmhouse and threw herself screaming, into the stunned Knight who had just realized his mistake. His battle training was triggered and thinking this was a demon at his back, he struck blindly under his arm and she fell mortally wounded to lay next to her husband.


After what seemed as an eternity but was in fact a fifth of a marc later, the fury of the battle shifted away and Gorvan ran to his parants. He saw them laying where they fell yet somehow managing on their dying breaths to reach out to one another and hold hands as they passed away. In his pure sadness and rage a dormant and ancient power was awakened and summoned itself to the boy. As the powerful being bonded with the boy to save his heart it strengthened his spirit and soul yet left a deep void, the battle ended with victory for the Knights. They gathered their wounded and salvaged weapons and armor from the battle they discovered the boy. He seemed to be unharmed yet when he began telling his tale they could scarcely believe him, then when no Knight stepped forward to accept the responsibility for his parants death he was dismissed as a confused child and then delivered to a home for orphans where he fell beneath notice or memory.


Years passed and each battle grew more costly and unsure for the Knights while lost battles became more numerous. The previously confident Knights were now fully aware of their mortality and saw their order thinning. Rumors flourished of a Dark Champion who slew them at will. On the eve of their greatest battle in a thousand years, the Iron Knights gathered from across the land. The eldest of the Knights revealed the truth that this would be the battle where their order ceased to exist as the losses had been too great and their enemy had gathered all of it's forces. A few suggested retreat but they all knew that this was their first and last chance to strike a crippling defeat to their enemy but it would also spell their own demise. Meanwhile a cloaked figure sat in the shadows and listened, he thought back to a time of innocence several years earlier when an Iron Knight killed his family, then he stood and walked away into the night.


The next few days passed bloodlessly as the armies marched and closed to striking distance. Small engagements were then exchanged for nearly a week as the armies tested each other and maneuvered. Finally the Battle was upon them all with the ground churned in fallen blood of both red and black, under the feet of man and demon alike. The Dark Champion joined the battle wearing his distinctive armor of various pieces of Knight armor and Demon armor joined together so that he appeared to be part demon and part man. Gorvan stalked the battlefield in his armor striking down Demon and Knight with whimsy. Some random twist of fate lead the battle back the very same hamlet where it all began for him. As he saw a Demon slay a farmer he noticed a small boy hiding and terrified. And just as if looking in a morror he saw himself and with that rare and once in a lifetime moment of Clarity and Ephifany he saw the reality in his past years and fainted.


Dawn awakened Gorvan from a dark nightmare and he rose as if from death to stood in early light. Tears streamed down his face and struck the soil as he stripped off his defiled armor down to his tattered clothes. During the night a small group of Knights had fortified a nearby barn to prepare for a final stand and also during the night the hidden half of the Demon army arrived and revealed itself. The Demons had rallied around their Leader to end the Knights for all time. Gorvan felt more tears burning his eyes as he stood to face the Knights. As his tears fell they mingled with the dawn light and gained their power, where they landed in the soil they found their form from the power of the world and the gods, each tear sprang forth from the ground as an Ultimate Weapon and flung itself into the hands of the Knights with the purest spirit. Miketallo turned around feeling the first full rays of the sun and where the light touched him it became armor.


Every being drawing breath paused at the marvel of this sight, the likes of which had never been seen on trinald. For the Knights it was as if a being of light had decended to them from Sunrifter promising salvation. For the Demons it was their dark desires for victory being challanged. The moment of power soon passed and the demons struck from all sides. In the first moments of battle any knight without an Ultimate Weapon was struck down. Those Knights with Ultimate Weapons fought like Knight possessed any demon weapons were blocked and shattered on the Knights Weapons, clawed hands gripping weapons were severed, and glowing eyed demon heads were chopped off to fall and roll. Gorvan walked through the battle unarmed as any demon striking him would burst into flames. He closed on the Demon leader and picked up a demon spear which he flung into the leaders heart. The Leader faded to smoke as a laugh echoed into the distance. The Demons were all defeated and the Iron Knights had finally and Truly been forged.


The Iron Knights forgave Gorvan's past and asked him to join them because their numbers were in ruin and he could rally countless heroes to join them. Gorvan knew that this was not to be his destiny and left them to rebuild their world while he settled down to build his. Decades passed as the Knights reclaimed peace across the land and Gorvan was all but forgotten. Gorvan stood and looking out across the gentle fields which he had plowed and planted for many years, then at the Orchards which he had cultivated and tended, and finally at the small and peacefully sheltered village which had grown up around his flourishing farmstead. More years passed and an aged and wrinkled man named Gorvan sat within the cool shade on a summer day and thought back over the years. He was born there and died there as a child, then was reborn there and was now dying there again. Gorvan opened himself to the end then heard a voice, Not quite yet mortal! Gorvan faded to mist and was gone.


THE END

[Aezrel Thoryn]

Nice, but doesn't quite fit Gorvan's style for me... can't really say why! very nice ending though!

[Corwin Skyborn]

The whole theme of Gorvan was that it's a heroes name which occurs throughout history....

[Aezrel Thoryn]

Well, history does repeat itself! A sort of a power name or a hero's reincarnation is it?