The Tale of Years - Part Four

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The Fall of Aenarion

Of Daemons and Elves

It is said in the history books that from the union of Morathi and Aenarion came a single child of dark fate, the male-child Malekith; but surely from such ancient times it is impossible for every event to be recalled, no matter how pivotal. As the eons tumble forward, surely some facts must be lost. For in truth there was a girl-child named Alatariel, a creature every bit as precocious and gifted as her fraternal twin.

Alatariel was the most beautiful elven bairn the light of the sun has ever illuminated, a princess every bit as filled with bubbling potential as her brother.

Every bit as cursed. 

Aenarion raised his offspring to be powerful warriors and able leaders while Morathi taught the siblings powerful witchcraft and subtlety of thought. Malekith was named as Aenarion’s heir but when the powerful sorcerer lord Caledor Dragontamer founded his own kingdom to the south, talk began that perhaps the succession would not be as simple as all that.

And all the while, in the pernicious realm of chaos, K’syarta plotted the time of her most dreadful vengeance. Aenarion had slaughtered her beloved consort and she could never let that go unfogrgiven, even should the world become naught but cinders while she waited.

When forty two years had come and gone since the slaying of Prospertine she finally got her chance.

Leading a weltering tide of daemons into the mortal realms, K’syarta made her way to face her nemesis; her forces hacking and slaying all opposition they met to bloody ribbons.

Knowing that life could not continue with the forces of chaos running free, the mage Caledor began a powerful ritual to bind the winds of magic in a great vortex. Against his own better judgement, Aenarion defended the spellcasters as they began the incantations, fighting back against the onrush of slavering monsters.

Reaching him at last, K’syarta sent four greater daemons to make battle with him as she stood waiting; but the great Elven lord slew all of them.

Exhausted, he looked up as the towering form of K’syarta approached and gave a blood-flecked grin. Then battle was joined as the vortex increased in power, sucking the magical energy into it and forcing many of the daemons to fall prey to their unnatural instability.

Battered and dreadfully wounded, Aenarion was no match for the exalted Keeper of Secrets. K’syarta slashed at him again and again as he fought on stoically, but his sacrifice was not made wastefully. As he held K’syarta at bay, the great ritual was completed and the vortex snuffed out the daemonic horde and the dark magic that had kept them free of their perilous realm.

Realising that her time was done, K’syarta screamed in rage, plunging her sickle into Aenarion’s heart before she was banished in an explosion of esoteric force, leaving the now mortally wounded elf lord on his knees.

Tales tell elsewhere of the wounded Aenarion’s final pilgrimage to the Shrine of Khaine and his death at the foot of the black altar wherein he thrust his sword from whence it had come. We will not dwell on it here. The Elven realm and the greater world had been saved from the deluge of evil left behind by the Old Ones’ departure and that is all that must be said. The survivors set out at once to rebuild and start anew and to purge the taint of chaos as best they could from the once fair lands about them.

But Malekith was not chosen as successor for Aenarion, despite his obvious heritage. The prince Bel Shanaar was selected in his stead. Malekith's mother, Morathi, was enraged and bid him fight for his right but his sister, Alatariel, closed her slender fingers round his arm and whispered quietly in his ear. 

Now was not the time for this. Now was not the place. 

But that time and that place would one day come. That she assured him.

So with good grace, the true heir to the Elven realm stepped aside and allowed the rebuilding of the Elven realm to continue.

And he bided his time.