- The Fallen -

Lothar, Traetos Province, Southern Avestria

The trees and the huts were burning, the corpses were flooding the streets with their blood. The military buildings were demolished by the invaders. It was an invasion by the Parso over the kingdom of Lothar. Parso were the foreigners who had established their dominion over the South Eastern subcontinent for more than a hundred Mesha.

They desecrated the statues of the Avestriān gods and built their palaces atop the ruins of the Avestriān temples. The Parso had conquered the South Eastern subcontinent about a hundred and fifty Mesha ago and they had still retained their hegemony over the continent. They were nefarious, iniquitous, and deceitful conquerors. They had arrived in Avestriā with the intent of capturing the lands and keeping those lands under their rule.

About three Mesha ago they had captured the Avestriān kingdom of Goldrunes. Goldrunes was once under the Traetos province but now it belonged to the Parso. It was the ancestral home of an ancient tribe named the Asaepherus. The Shepherds were the brethren of the Neraepherus, the house to which Herios belonged. The Parso had captured Goldrunes in the past by invading it and now they had turned their attention towards the kingdom of Lothar. The Parso were determined on capturing the entire continent by conquering small kingdoms, one after the other.

Mythra and Aerytha along with other women and children were following the bowman who led them into a tenebrous tunnel. Once everyone was inside the tunnel, the last person to enter it was instructed to close the tunnel with the huge boulder at its entrance. The tunnel was an underground pathway that was built for the sole purpose of providing an escape route, in the event of an invasion. It was an extremely narrow path and hardly two people could fit into it, provided they stood shoulder to shoulder.

There were sconces placed in the nooks, which occurred at regular intervals of distance. The sconces held the candles which somehow brightened the corpuscular environment of the tunnel.

It was similar to walking inside the body of a gigantic worm, without knowing about the location of an egress. The bowman led the way and all the women and children followed. Mythra and Roshai's students were in the middle of the crowd. The tunnel had gossamer cobwebs hanging at many places and the only source of light was the sconces lit at the nooks, which made it scarier to walk through.

The tunnel was built as a burrow into the ground, which is why it appeared more like a narrow cave. After running through the tunnel for a considerable amount of time, they finally arrived at the egress. The tunnel opened into a wide area. On the right-hand side of the exit was the fortified wall which led into the citadel.

They were shocked to see that the curtain wall had been breached and the citadel itself was on fire. Lothar was defeated and the invaders had presumably murdered the King of Lothar while he was asleep. There was the tributary of river Nelam on the other end of the kingdom. The river banks had a cornucopia of canoes, waiting at the edges. Some of the canoes were broken and burning, but some of them were still intact.

"Everyone to the boats!" instructed the bowman who had led them towards this escape route. The trees at the banks of the tributary shadowed the small quay and the people immediately rushed towards the quay to escape. Aerytha got down from Mythra's embrace as they rushed towards one of the canoes. Mythra suddenly slipped over the mushy surface and toppled on the ground, with his face down. Aerytha halted for him to recover but Mythra yelled at her to keep running towards the canoe.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, there was a huge explosion from one of the gigantic watchtowers at the edge of the fortified wall. Everyone was startled by this explosion and they started screaming on their way while running to the banks of the river. The structure of that tower had begun to collapse as a result of that explosion. As Mythra pushed himself to get back on his feet, he saw an elephantine column of stone falling on the people who were running towards the boats. It was going to crush all the women and children along with his sister, Aerytha Nelarii.

"NO!" yelled Mythra when he gazed at Aerytha, standing just below the falling column. Some of the women holding their newborn infants were also trapped in the shadow of the falling column. All of them screamed in apprehension about seeing their death, descending straight down upon them. Aerytha ducked, the women collapsed backward and covered their children with their hands. All of them had surrendered to their fate. The bowman averted his eyes to avoid seeing the women and children, getting crushed below the falling pillar.

To their amazement, the huge column, which was about to crush them all and kill them, suddenly ceased before falling upon them. As they opened their eyes, all of them were thunderstruck to the core of their beings. They saw an adolescent boy standing in a squatted posture and holding the column across his shoulders and his neck. It was Mythra Auctisila, the Caligor, whom they had despised all his life.

Aerytha was astounded as she saw her elder brother, holding that elephantine column over his shoulders. Although she could see him yelping in agony as he strenuously tried to push the column upwards, she was unable to help him. His legs were shivering and his contorted face was red. However, there was something more enigmatic that befuddled the people who were staring at this herculean act of Mythra. They were astounded to see a display of superhuman strength exhibited by a boy who stood as a stalwart between them and their death.

Mythra's garment that covered his back was glowing with some strange aura similar to Aerytha's palms when she tried to heal someone. The aura originated at the location of his rudimentary tailbone and then it went all the way up to his neck, tracing a line of bright light along his spine.

Tempestuous ripples of wind were emanating from Mythra's body and they were storming out in all directions. Mythra screamed as he tried to hold the column away from all the trapped villagers who were begging for their lives. Everyone swiftly got out of the reach of the column's descent because Mythra's hold was getting lower and lower. Mythra continued shrieking, as he tried to hold the column over his back, but now he was falling weak at his knees. His ankle was already impaired but somehow he was able to hold this gigantic structure over his own body.

As soon as the last person crawled out of the column's shadow, Mythra jerked a brawny push to the column with both of his hands, and the column was tossed, slightly upwards. This jerk provided enough space for Mythra to escape. Somehow, he jumped outside the reach of the descent and the column collapsed on the ground with a loud noise and shattered into huge pieces of rock. The rescued folks were shocked to realize that the falling column could have crushed them to death if it was not for Mythra Auctisila's heroic deed.

Some of them were already on the boats while the women and children who were rescued by Mythra were closer to the embankment. They rushed to get on the canoes when they saw the Parso soldiers storming towards them on their Shrava*. The bowman who had witnessed this herculean act by Mythra was thunderstruck and this distraction contributed to his death when an arrow impaled right through his skull. Mythra was the last one to sprint towards the levee. As if his impaired foot was not enough to become an obstacle, he was now being chased by the invaders.

Mythra ran with all his might, dragging his impaired foot and taking leaps with his other foot. Aerytha and the disciple were already on the canoe. The Parso soldiers launched a volley of arrows over the escapees to kill them. Some of the people who had boarded the canoe earlier had already left the embankment. They ducked inside their boats to save themselves from the incoming volley of arrows but some of them died on getting struck.

The last canoe was held up by the disciple of Roshai for Mythra to board it. Out of nowhere, the woman with her newborn infant, whom Mythra had saved from the falling column, pushed the disciple away vigorously and extended her right arm towards the front end of the canoe. Mythra believed that she was just returning the favor of saving him by extending her hand towards him, but the woman just loosened the rope of the anchor so that the boat would leave the embankment instantly.

"What are you doing?! He just saved you!" exclaimed the disciple, trying to resist the woman but the other people in the boat held the disciple back.

"We don't want that Caligor on our canoe! It's his fault that our kingdom is in ashes!" they shouted and pushed the canoe away from the brink.

Mythra was still farther from the levee and he was disheartened on seeing the people, abandoning him, when he had tried to save all of them. The canoe had already left the banks and it was carried away by the turbulent waves of the tributary.

"NO! Mythra!" screamed Aerytha as her eyes, filled with tears, turned red and sore from crying. The disciple had held her back from letting her dive into the river. Mythra glanced back over his shoulder to see the Parso troops seated on their Shrava and chasing him with all their might.

Slipping, stumbling, and dodging the arrows from the Parso on his tail, he saw the canoe traveling far away from the edge. He had only one option and that was to make a long jump towards the canoe. He knew that he would not survive if he tried to swim through the river as the Parso soldiers would easily kill him with their spears and arrows. As soon as he reached the mushy edge of the river, he squatted to give a strong jerk to his jump and then launched himself into the air towards the receding boat.

Unfortunately, his jump wasn't strong enough and Mythra fell into the flowing river without getting hold of the canoe. It was dark all around him and the boats slowly waned out from his sight. The only light that illuminated the milieu was the one from the flames, burning the citadel in the vicinity.

He was being dragged by the turbulent water of the river and traveled downstream along with the flow. He was unable to maneuver his swim due to the formidable force of the river and during this time, Mythra's head suddenly collided with a rock in his path. Aerytha and the disciple could no longer see his body in the water. The canoes receded from the kingdom of Lothar, safe and secure from the invasion. Supposedly, the people in the canoes were the only remaining survivors of Lothar.

Herios was already lost to them and now Mythra and Aerytha were also separated from each other. It was a disaster that had turned Lothar into ashes. The flag hoisted on the tower of the citadel was no more of the Traetos province but now it displayed the emblem of the Parso Empire. The Kingdom of Lothar was subjugated by the Parso. They ravaged and pillaged the entire kingdom. They looted the burning homes, raped the women who were trapped into their huts, killed the people who tried to rebel against the soldiers and they took all the others as slaves.

The halcyon of Lothar had ended forever. Now it was under the dominion of a Parso ruler who was going to rule over the kingdom as an oppressive and iniquitous tyrant. The temple of Seros was demolished by the Parso and the statue of Seros inside the sanctum Sanctorum was desecrated.

The infirmary was left with a burning roof, shrouding the corpses of all the medics and the injured folks who were stationed there, for recovery. The bodies were too disfigured to be recognized by anyone. Amongst the plethora of these corpses was found a body with a burnt face and a broken jaw. A white Silsa robe was draped over the body of an old woman.

___________________________
Footnotes:

• Parso was the empire which had invaded the south eastern subcontinent and captured all the land. They had maintained their dominion over the south east for more than a hundred Mesha

• Mesha means a year which comprises of sixteen Seron (Month)

• Silsa was a clothing material