Chapter 09 - The Capture of Eryndor Iluvatar
The village of Kleiner Alter Hof nestled in the shadow of the Eldrath cliffs, its timbered houses warmed by hearth fires, its fields heavy with spring grain. It was a place of modest folk, who sang to the harvest gods and honoured the old pacts with the mountain. Few dared approach the entrance to the Heldenschmiede Labyrinth, the black wound in the mountain’s face that yawned with ancient threat. But this night, no song rose. The wind carried something bitter.
The Bard, Eryndor Iluvatar, twin brother to the famed Lehmitz Tavern bard, stood on the chapel steps, plucking a slow melody from his moonwood harp. His silver hair caught the starlight, and his voice, always calm and sad, echoed across the square. The people of Kleiner Alter Hof listened in silence. And then came the scream.
The first torch was seen atop the western ridge. Then another. Then twenty. Like fireflies born of hate, they descended—raiders, armoured in mismatched plate and bone, faces masked or painted with sigils of madness. They moved with horrifying purpose, crossing the village boundary in silence before erupting into violence. This was no simple raid. This was a purge.
Doors were smashed. Men and women cut down in the street. Horses panicked and bolted into the night. The village bell rang—but only once before it fell silent, its ringer slain. At their centre strode a war leader— Vohrgath the Red-Helm, a monstrous man in obsidian plate. At his side, a sorcerer cloaked in rags chanted in a tongue not spoken by men. Above them flew a banner stitched with the black brand of Molloch, the Great Lord of Flame and Chains.
Eryndor stood firm. He sang a chord of shielding, sending streaks of arcane energy to protect a fleeing child. His second spell shattered the blade of a charging warrior. But there were too many.
Vohrgath’s gauntlet struck him with the force of a battering ram. His harp cracked as he fell. The sorcerer hissed words of binding, and spectral chains clamped around his limbs. His scream echoed once—and was swallowed by the dark. They dragged him, broken and defiant, back into the black maw of the Labyrinth.
By dawn, Kleiner Alter Hof was a ruin. Smoke curled from the wreckage. Survivors wandered like ghosts. The village elder clutched a scorched page from Eryndor’s songbook, weeping silently.
“They came from the Labyrinth,” one man said. “They’ve taken him,” another whispered.
Whispers spread quickly: the Raiders of the Heldenschmiede were no longer bound to the deep. Something had changed. Molloch stirred again—and he demanded blood.
Deep beneath the earth, past twisting halls and forgotten trials, the raiders carried Eryndor toward a desecrated temple lit by red flame and bone-pyre.
Here, in a chamber once sacred to the gods of unity, now twisted by the will of Moloch, they prepared for the Ritual of Unbinding—a dark rite meant to sever the ancient seals that kept their master from walking the mortal world.
Eryndor, gagged and bound, watched as the altar was prepared. His eyes still burned with defiance.
“Your soul will sing for Moloch,” the ragged sorcerer whispered, “and his chains will break the sky.”
The torchlight flickered. Far above, the bells of Kleiner Alter Hof remained silent.
But rescue might yet come—if the right heroes dared enter the Labyrinth once more…
