Would you Read This Book? Why or Why not and Suggestions.

Chapter 1: Ravkoth's Beginning

Ravkoth had been left in a huge wolfskin in the middle of the clan as a baby, crying in the cold night air. Presumably some poorer clan had been unable to afford the new babe, and so he had been abandoned.

He didn’t hate his parents, though as a young child he had often wondered what he had done to make them leave him. In hindsight, most of the reasons he had thought of in childhood seemed foolish to him now.

Sometimes he wished he just knew who they were. He could understand if they didn't want him, because he knew feeding a baby in the middle of winter could be hard. However, the men of the Ironblood clan were good hunters, and Ravkoth almost never went hungry.

As he grew up in the clan of Ironblood, the pretended fierce warriors were disdainful of his imagination. They resented his position in the clan, as a high ranking clan member had adopted him.

The warriors in days of old had been said to rival 10 men with swords, but now without any enemies, they had grown soft. They still pretended they were as tough as their ancestors, but in reality they were severely weaker. They had many legends about the bravest of warriors going on impossible quests, gaining great treasure and renown. Even now, the most brave or some would say, foolhardy, ventured forth into the unknown to seek wealth.

Their greatest stories told of warriors and weapons touched by the beings of myth. One of the greatest legends was the myth of the forging of Zonormak.

"Zonormak, the ancient sword of luck. Made from hardened green jade. Darker jade at the edges, near clear jade towards the center, emeralds and peridot for the hilt, smelted in the green lava of Mount Etna, serrated edges on one side, and the sharpest straightedge in the world on the other."

It was said that you could see into the future if you could look through the center. Ravkoth had grown up hearing legends about this sword from the Shaman of his clan. The Shaman was a healer, minor spellcaster, and storyteller.

He had a way of telling stories that made the children love listening to him. Doing things like making the fire change colors with special powders, and changing his voice to represent the deep troll voices, like an angry mountain. Or the sprites voices higher and more playful, as if they were about to play a trick on you.

It was the storytelling that Ravkoth enjoyed most about him, though the 6-year-old Ravkoth who had broken his leg climbing trees and had it instantly healed begged to differ.

Anyways, the most popular story with Ravkoth, (and the other clan-children) was easily the story of the forging of Zonormak. By kindling fire in the heart of a green volcano, fueling it with the hat, coat, and pants of a leprechaun, and adding exactly thirteen-thousand four-leaf clovers.

The sword was forged by the lava-dwellers with hammers made of ultra-hardened obsidian. Leprechauns had provided the hat, coat, and pants, and the field sprites which collected all of the four-leaf clovers except three, which were found by the friendlier Trolls growing from the soil in their ears. The precious stones that made up the blade and hilt of Zonormak had been found by dwarves in their caves and elves in the mountain glades.

Ravkoth was a brown-haired teen, fourteen, about seventeen hands tall and strong enough to carry a tree. He would go hunting almost daily with his best friend and occasionally their dad, and had a great aim with a bow. He did not, however, practice with the sword. That was reserved for the warriors.

Now, Ravkoth had seen little green men and even stranger things while traveling with his clan. However, when he brought this up with other members of the clan, they always shut down the conversation, saying “Bad luck to talk of such things” or “You must be seeing things,” leaving Ravkoth frustrated.

There were two other people who didn’t seem to think Ravkoth strange for this, and one even seemed relieved, as if he needed to be able to talk about the strange creatures. One of them was his best friend Conner, and the other was none other than the story-telling Shaman.

He and his best friend had quickly noticed that they were both able to see things that others couldn’t when Conner's wolf-pup had been carried off by what the clan-members saw as an eagle. Ravkoth and Conner had seen that though the head and claws of the creature were eagle-like (if a bit large), the back portion of the creature was entirely lion-like.

They had been very frightened, while the rest of the clan jeered at them, calling them names and making faces. That was, until more animals started disappearing around camp, things like sheep, goats, and even a horse. The clansfolk wondered, what kind of eagle had the strength to carry a horse?

The elders called a clan meeting for all the men of the clan, though all the boys still managed to listen through the animal-hide tent. The meeting was to decide if they should move early to get away from the creature plaguing them and their livestock. All of the tribesmen agreed.

The next day, the camp was filled with people rushing about, packing up the tents and getting animals ready to travel. The clanspeople moved around the land in a circle, never staying in an area too long to reduce the population of deer and rabbits enough that they wouldn’t come back. That way, they could always be sure of good hunting and campsites.

They had three sites, which struck the boys as strange, because they always moved in a circle rather than a triangle. Every journey they would have to camp around fourteen different times in whatever area they had made it to before reaching one of the main camps.

Every few years one of the boys would ask why they never just went through the circle, and save two weeks of traveling, but they were never given satisfactory answers. However, whispers of strange creatures being held there reached some of the older boys, and they quickly spread this information. It sowed fear throughout the camp, and everyone was even more eager to be going.

A few days into the journey, in the early morning, Ravkoth was awoken by Conner. He put a finger over his mouth to indicate silence, then pointed upwards to the top of the tent. There was a huge spider-like creature, about two feet in diameter, with bright green and orange markings on its legs and abdomen.

Ravkoth usually liked spiders, but this one had him worried. It was slowly lowering itself downward into Conner's little sister's crib, right over her head. Ravkoth knew that in the animal kingdom, bright usually means poisonous. He quickly drew his hunting knife from his leather belt and sliced the spider in half. The front half started falling, and Ravkoth stuck out his other hand to stop the lifeless spider from waking the toddler. The back half stayed attached to the webbing that it had used to rappel down, swinging eerily.

As Ravkoth caught the spider, he felt a pain in his hand. He looked down. One of the spider's fangs had pierced the tough, calloused skin.

He fell to the floor, convulsing, and was knocked out.Then he began dreaming. He saw himself traveling into the heart of the forest, the place the clan had always skirted around. As he traveled deeper in, he began to see large beasts, prowling, as if looking for intruders. Then he started to see little green men.

They were living in a small community with lots of buildings, with the grandest and most imposing buildings farther in the forest. He walked towards the one at the very end, one that looked like a palace. To his surprise, none of the Leprechauns seemed to notice him. The building was around four times his height, with huge ornate glass windows, and doors that looked like they belonged on the front of a medieval castle, albeit a small one.

He floated towards it, curiosity driving him onwards. He reached the doors faster than he expected, and reached out a hand to push them open. His hand went right through, and surprised at his own boldness, stepped forward into the door. As the wood rushed towards his face, he instinctively closed his eyes. He opened them again after a few seconds and was in the palace.

Inside, he saw many small people working. He stepped fully inside it and saw a hallway lined with vaults on either side. Some were big enough to fit him, while others were just the right size for the little green men. He peeked in them as he passed through and saw many different treasures. Gold, silver, chests, armor, weapons, jewels, and many other strange things.

At the very end, there was a dark blood-red door. It filled him with a sense of foreboding, however, his curiosity got the best of him, and he glanced through. It looked like the weapon in this room was worth more than all the other treasures combined. The blade looked to be made of stunning green jade, while the hand was set with the most beautifully carved emeralds Ravkoth had ever seen.

It was huge for the little people but just the right size for the people in Ravkoth’s clan or even Ravkoth himself. There were guards outside the door, and though Ravkoth couldn’t hear anything, he saw them whispering to each other and occasionally glancing reverently at the door as if they were lucky to be guarding it.

He tried walking back down the hall but everything started going blurry. He woke up in the tent groggy. His entire arm felt as if it were dipped in molten glass. He couldn’t hear anything except a sharp ringing noise that gradually started to fade.

He heard screams outside the tent and tried to get up but fell. Conner and his little sister were gone. He heard more screams. This time he managed to get to his feet and stumble through the flap of his animal skin tent. The tents were arranged in a V shape pattern with his tent being in the middle of the right side of the V.

As he looked towards the open end of the V and stopped. There was a spider, similar to the one that he had killed, but it was at least as tall as him. It was dragging Conner's sister away, and Conner was laying on the floor a couple yards to Ravkoth's right, unmoving.

Ravkoth stumbled over to him and saw the steady rising and falling of his chest. Conner’s eyes opened and said “Save her.” and his head dropped back into the dirt.

Ravkoth looked back up. The spider was almost to the forest edge, fending off the men attacking it with the spikes on its legs. He was slowly regaining the feeling in his right arm. He strode to the weapons tent, ducked inside, and looked at the wide array of weapons before him. He realized a sword would probably be as helpful in his hands as a club, because he’d never practiced with one before, but he grabbed one anyway.

He walked back out and headed towards the edge of the forest where a group of people had gathered to look at the spider’s tracks. They were irregular, but Ravkoth was able to follow the indentations in the grass. He set off.

The tracks led to the edge of the clearing that marked the boundary between the campgrounds and the forbidden part of the woodland. As he started through the gloomy forest, he kept careful attention to the tracks, eyes fixed on the ground.

He heard the twittering of birds start up, which had quieted when he had entered, but there was no chirping or buzzing of the insects that usually inhabited the forest. Strangely the camp had been bothered less by insects than previous years when visiting this site.

Every few months the clan moved to another site, returning each year to the previous sites. In this way, the game was replenished, and they never had to worry about large predators for too long because the predators rarely were aware of their presence until it was time to leave.

As Ravkoth got to the end of the trail, he looked up. In front of him was a huge, dead, hollowed-out tree. It was covered in cobwebs that swung eerily in the late afternoon sun. As Ravkoth looked around for the spider, he idly wondered, “How long have I been unconscious?”

He felt a chill creep up his neck and heard a skittering off in the woods behind him. A rustle in the branches ahead made him look up. The spider was looking down at Ravkoth with a near-human intelligence. It looked hungry and clicked its mandibles.

As if on signal, Ravkoth was rammed into by a spider the size of a dog. As he got bowled over, he saw thousands, if not millions, of spiders throwing webbing on him. He tried to hit the spider with his right arm, but it just kept getting more and more tangled.

As he tried to grasp his sword with his left hand, he found it surprisingly easy, as he hadn’t struggled with that hand at all. He drew it, and the spiders quickly started scuttling toward him, intent on stopping him. He slashed at the webbing surrounding him, trying not to cut himself as the webbing kept sticking to his arm.

Despite his efforts, a web caught on his hand and changed the direction of his swing, which made his sword carve a gash in his hand. He jerked his sword-arm back and tried pulling his right hand out. He had cut most of the webbing so it came free.

Behind him, a large stomping “THUMP THUMP” turned him away from the onslaught of spiders. A huge troll barged past him into the horde of spiders, crushing some underfoot and swinging his club at the rest. The troll looked to be wearing thick armor made of cowhide, and the spiders couldn’t get through.

He ran right past Ravkoth to the tree and quickly pounded it three times. A huge white sac covered in webbing fell to the ground from the inside of the tree, and the troll grabbed it, hauling it over his back and starting to charge away. The spiders attacked him, ignoring Ravkoth for this threat to their posterity.

Conner's sister wasn’t in the tree, though the large spider was steadily climbing down. It hadn’t seemed to notice nor remember Ravkoth yet, so he took a chance and, climbing a few branches, slid into the hollow tree.

Hearing the spider descending he felt panicked, thinking “I’ll be trapped if it spots me!” Even as he moved to try and escape the tight space, he saw the spider's shadow move over his hiding place and froze.

It seemed to take an eternity for the spider to pass over Ravkoth's place of refuge but eventually it moved on. He slowly released the air he hadn’t realized he’d been holding in.

He carefully climbed out of the niche in the tree and continued upwards. Suddenly, a branch he had grabbed onto for support cracked and fell, hitting other branches and making sharp CRACKing sounds every time it did.

Nervously he looked down. The spider had turned around at the sound of the branches breaking and was now headed towards Ravkoth faster than seemed possible with all the branches in the way.

The spider was getting closer every second, and Ravkoth was still staring at it with morbid fascination, unmoving. The sound of mandibles off to his right made him turn. The spiders were returning, and in the center of the mass of appendages was the egg sac. It was clutched in the jaws of one of the largest and most imposing spiders.

The tarantula carrying the sac had many scars, as if it had to fight many battles to ensure its dominance. Ravkoth knew that if he didn’t kill the spider heading toward him soon, the other spiders would notice him and he would have no chance of escape. So instead of climbing back up the tree, he did a sort of hop to each of the branches, getting gradually lower and lower with each hop.

The spider was getting nearer and nearer, and with his increased velocity, the spider seemed to be rushing towards him with supernatural speed. A twig snagged on his buckskin leggings as he landed on a limb a few branches above the spider, and slowed him down as he had to untangle himself. Eventually he just sliced the twig and left it stuck in the thick fibers.

By the time he had accomplished this, the gargantuan arachnid was nearly upon him, and he could see the bluish venom dripping from its mandibles. Drawing his sword, he pointed it unsteadily downward at the spider. It paused, and the branch beneath him gave an almighty wrench and he staggered, losing his balance for a moment.

The branch he had paused on was actually multiple large branches pulled together and secured with webbing. It made a kind of platform with a few large holes in it large enough for the spider to fit through, and it was through one of these that Ravkoth was watching the spider.

That was all the spider needed, and it gave a strangled sort of chirping sound that sounded almost happy. The branch seemed to think this was too much, and it broke away from the tree, causing Ravkoth to change his center of gravity and plunge straight downwards.