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We came out of the portal that Tanthis had formed into a field and a road not too far off. North of us I could just barely make out Torrnal. Calmon barked quietly once wagging his tail as I took in the sights and gathered my bearings. Tan was leaning heavily on Calmon's back, catching his breath from working so much energy at once.

He spoke to Calmon softly and just lay there. Calmon began an easy walk towards the road and away from Torrnal, Lorth followed close behind.

"Are you alright Tan?" I asked, moving up close to check on him.

"I'm fine Jes, just tired. I told Calmon how to get there. He's going to lead while I rest here. Don't go too fast, we don't want to get there till tomorrow." Tan replied to me, closing his eyes to rest. We traveled in quiet then, the two wolves wuffing to each other from time to time while I watched the road and Tan in turns.

He started to stir and become more active in a few hours, starting to look around before his gaze locked to the south of us to a mountain pass. "That way, Well camp at the base of the hills tonight. Tomorrow we go inside." He turned Calmon that way and started a fast pace to try and make it before night.

"Why Tan? What's in there?" I yelled as Lorth caught up.

"Heh, as your mother put it. My destiny, should I chose to meet it or not."

We rode hard throughout the afternoon until we were just a few hours from the base of the mountain pass. As we drew closer I could feel a odd sensation in the air. Tanthis seemed to be getting more and more agitated as we drew close. He must have been feeling it more intensely than I was.

Calmon and Lorth began to act a little oddly as we setup our small camp site, no fire, they circled around and refused to leave our sides. They pressed us close together, protectively cuddling around us.

The night was horrible. One of the worst nights I'd ever spent outdoors. It wasn't the fear of animals or strange noises. It was the strange air and the absolute silence around us. The leaves didn't move in the wind, no animals stirred. It was as if all life was drained from the land around us. I didn't sleep at all that night. Tanthis only held me close, breathing across my hair softly while petting my back and tail. We spent the night together like that, no sleep for our party of four misfits.

We started off before dawn, our wolves carefully making their way to the mountain pass and then through it. As we started down into the valley we could make out figures moving there in the middle. Calmon and Lorth were experts at sneaking around. As expert as you could be when your a huge wolf. And we made it down to the valley floor without incident.

There in the middle of the valley was a platform which held a single individual atop it. Surrounding the platform was I dare say, an army of man and breeds. Something was wrong though, I felt something there that I'd never felt before. As we came forward, I realized what I felt, it wasn't anything, it was the lack of something. These things, these were the same abominations we'd seen before. Only, many of them, of all breeds and men.

Tanthis walked proudly forward towards the mass, Calmon behind him. I walked along side with Lorth trailing me. Both wolves were starting to growl quietly. The mob of soulless people paid us no mind, but, someone did notice. The individual stood there, watching us approach, chuckling cruelly as we approached.

"Welcome, welcome to my army. I'd introduce myself, but, that'd be pointless. You'll join my army soon, I am impressed though. You're the first to come here without being brought. And you've brought me two such strong beasts. I was wondering where Ornmi hid these two." He spoke to us as we approached.

"I'm afraid not Torrnal, yes I know who you are." Tanthis called up to him, his voice seeming grander and more powerful than I'd ever heard. "I've been sent here to stop you."

With those simple words Tanthis drew into himself and the powers of the elements flooded into his body like a dam released. I could feel nothing of the spirits and elemental forces around me, only Tanthis, like a being of pure elemental energies. He warped air and water and around him and then held his staff high.

Lightning streaked from the tip of his staff and tore in all directions through the masses of assembled soulless automatons. I couldn't hear anything but the crackling energy nor feel anything but Tanthis. Lorth must have noticed something.

Lorth leapt over me and shielded me from something I couldn't describe. I felt something deep inside of me being torn away. It hurt like a pain that drives all thought from the body. I collapsed down to my knees, breathing hard and barely awake as Lorth collapsed there before me. My poor friend must have seen what was happening and took the bulk of whatever was intended for me. All the spirit seemed drained from him, I could only imagine what it had done to me.

Calmon howled out loudly, his brother laying before him wounded or dead. The wolf went into a rampage, tearing off into the mob. He tore the bodies to shreds that hadn't already fallen from the lightning that was only now subsiding from Tanthis' staff.

Tanthis moved in front of me, standing proud and strong yet. The army of Torrnal was now barely a handful only now shuffling towards us. Calmon was making quick work of those.

"Very good, you've wasted your strength defeating an army that I can raise in moments. Your mate is barely alive, and your pet is dead. And that's from just one test of my power. Prepare yourselves for oblivion and then servitude as members of my army." He taunted us. Torrnal began to tear the elemental forces asunder as he began to gather his energies to assault us again.

Tanthis did nothing, he stood there like a guardian.

"You pull the world and force the elements to your bidding, the days of the master race are gone. You must join them and return balance!" Tanthis drew a small circle around us with the end of his staff before turning to Calmon. "Go now! Flee this place!"

Calmon growled his opinion of that plan, but took off running, leaving only a few stragglers of the army left moving. I couldn't stand and just stayed close by to Tanthis.

"Kilt of the wolves, Gloves of the felines, Mark of the dragons, and Love of the Foxes." He smiled down to me for a moment. "The four descendants of the primal forces are given to me freely. And spirit made me who I am. What you should have become. The true form of what the master race should have become." Tanthis yelled proudly up to Torrnal.

The creature before us seemed taken aback for a moment at that proclamation from my mate. He continued to pull incredible energies into himself, the air around him seemed to ripple and bend at the forces.

Tanthis seemed to wait an eternity before striking out with something that felt like spirit, but something was off with it. It was, it was just what Torrnal had hit me with! That same draining feeling was in the air, this time moving away from us and against Torrnal. He didn't seem to have a counter for that as his eyes grew wide when the controlling force of all that power he'd gathered was suddenly stripped away as Tan drew the spirit straight from his body.

Torrnal's form above us shuddered as the collected energies he'd torn from the elements and souls he'd captured started to break free. With his grip on life failing, the tremendous energies were beginning to unravel.

Tanthis drew me close and drew a barrier of spirit around us, using its tempering effect on the four primal elements to help protect us as wave after wave of energy started to snap back against the world like a whip striking back at the wielder. I huddled there next to him, too spent and weak to offer any help. All I could do was curl up near by and stay close as the world around us seemed shake and try to tear itself apart.

That wooden token fell from his pack and rolled out onto the soil just outside the barrier he'd created. The coin fell with a humans face up, the features immediately beginning to burn away as it was exposed to the forces being released above us. Tanthis watched the coin intently, eyes consumed by it for reasons I suppose only he knew.

He smiled a little when it landed and started to burn away, he knelt next to me and lightly stroked my hair a moment. "You know what you foxes say about fate right?"

"Destiny, you can chose to meet it." I looked up, "Why? What's happening?"

"Exactly what I've hoped for since we left the dragons and the foxes." He knelt down to kiss me once softly on the lips before planting his staff firmly into the ground. He drew his shield through it and left it there as his hands left the staff. He started to walk towards the edge of his barrier keeping us alive as the world erupted in unrestrained magics around us.

"Tan! Don't go! You won't make it! We'll be okay here! Don't go!" I cried out to him, I was too weak to follow. He turned and smiled sadly to me. "We'll be fine my love. You'll make it."

With those words he stepped from the barrier and exposed himself to the hurricane of destructive power raining hell upon the valley around us. He closed his eyes and in a few moments began drawing the awesome power erupting from Torrnal into himself. His body contorted in pain he was assaulted inside and out with the power rebounding from Torrnal.

Tanthis stood there, taking all of the abuse and channeling the raw power from Torrnal, directing it instead into himself. The area around us began to calm, fires fading out and winds dying down. Instead there was just the pulsing of power from my mate as he drew the last power from the dying mage into himself.

The barrier surrounding me suddenly grew intensely strong, he was still maintaining it to protect me. The mage was dead, his remains in the winds as his body was destroyed by the powers he'd stolen. There wasn't anything Tan needed to protect me from...except...himself!

I called out to him again as loud as I could. He turned and smiled again softly to me before turning away and releasing the power he'd taken in to save me. The power erupted around me like an explosion of wind. All around me dust streaked past and filled the skies. Only the shield that Tanthis had raised around me had remained intact.

As quickly as the rush came, it was gone. And after another moment or two so was the barrier around me. Looking around, I could see where he had stood. There, was a shimmering aura, a light in the middle of the destruction the valley had endured. On the ground in front of me was the coin he had been so concerned with. I picked up the simple item and looked over it. The back side that had been protected by the destruction of the front was a carving of a vixen face. The human side had protected the vixen by placing itself in harms way.

With that final revelation I collapsed into exhaustion, clutching his staff in my paw.

I was dimly aware of Calmon limping back to me and dragging me up onto his back, everything went black after that.

I awoke some time later, laying in a soft bed with my wounds tended. There, at my side was Granh. "Good evening Jeseia, rest now. You are safe."

I nodded a little and closed my eyes. Rest did not come to me, only tears as this was the first night in so long that I didn't have my mate Tan with me. I cried until I hadn't the strength to cry any longer, my body just shuddering as wave after wave of emotion hit me.

Granh entered again the next morning, I hadn't slept at all. He shook his head a little and sat next to me. "When we recovered you from the outside of that valley from Calmon, there was a shimmering thing in center of the valley, but no sign at all of Tanthis. We did not find a body or any remains, just blackened earth and the object there in the middle. Calmon brought this staff back with you, seems to be the only thing to come out of the valley intact. It looks like he took the power and channeled it directly back into the elemental forces, it punched a hole."

Granh gently took my paw in his, patting it a little in assurance. "He tied our world to another, rather than let the power destroy ours. He saved us all Jes."

I nodded just a little, crying again softly and curling up into a ball under the blankets of the bed. Wanting nothing to do with it. I just wanted him back.

A few months went by, Granh took care of me the best he could but with the expression on his face, I knew he was worried. It was becoming harder to eat, sleep, to do anything. All I could think about was my mate who willingly died not five feet from me. I felt drained, even the loss of friends hadn't hurt me this deeply. The one assault I endured from the mad mage had taken its toll.

Eight months from the incident, I was bed ridden the whole time. Eight months from that day, I gave birth to a beautiful daughter. Her fur was pitch black as onyx in the depths of night. Granh helped me take care of her, as I was unable to leave bed by now.

As I write this, You are playing with grandpa Granh out front, mock fighting with the boys and helping around the camp. I hope this finds you in good health when you're old enough. I've trusted it to Granh in hopes that it will make it to the chronicles your father left of our adventures at the dragon lore keepers.

Know that we owe a debt that can never be repaid to your father, and know that I don't think he died for me, or for us. But for you.

Tales of Torrnal

Chronicled by Jeseia al'Kendara, mate of Tanthis of man.