Tears of the Ancients: The Untold Story of Vidar, the True King of Vikings

By Calvin Crick

The world of magic has disappeared. The dragons, witches, wizards, fey, and unicorns are all gone, and many are left wondering what happened to them. Are they really gone, or are they just in hiding?

Loot is a young orphan boy who lives among the Viking clan. He has no knowledge of his past, and his future is just as unknown. He has only just returned to the village of his childhood after a year spent wandering the Smoking Mountains. He survives a dangerous encounter with the Clan of Dragons, enemies of his adopted people. Even so, Loots return does not bring celebration, and some people even feel he should be punished. They have no idea that Loot is the key to the worlds salvation.

The boy has the power to save the human race and perhaps even to return the ancient dragons to places of power. As his mysterious past begins to reveal itself, it soon becomes clear that he is much more than a weak orphan boy. Before he can become a hero, though, he must first come to terms with his hidden historyand prepare for battle.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Apr 22, 2014
• ISBN: 9781491728260

Calvin Crick

C R Crick is a fifty-three-year-old dreamer living in British Columbia, Canada. Of English and Irish descent, he and his wife, CarrieAnn, have two children and too many cats to name.

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Calvin Crick

iUniverse LLC

Bloomington

TEARS OF THE ANCIENTS

The Untold Story of Vidar, the True King of Vikings

Copyright © 2014 Calvin Crick.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-4917-2825-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-2827-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-2826-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014905313

iUniverse rev. date: 04/16/2014

CONTENTS

Prologue

1.    In The Days Of The Great Wars

2.    Loot’s Youth

3.    The Smoking Mountains

4.    Loot Learns What He Is

5.    The Training Field

6.    Dento Is Missing

7.    Memories To Use

8.    Heading Home To South Bend

9.    Visit To The Palace

10.    Work At The Palace

11.    Teaona’s Trial

12.    Trip To Fair Well

13.    Poison Arrow

14.    The Return To Fair Well

15.    Loot Returns Home For The Last Time

16.    The Wedding

17.    The Trip

18.    The Last Time At Trans Lease

PROLOGUE

When the great ice age started to recede and life started to grow back on earth one hundred thousand years ago, nature was just taking form on land and at sea. The last of the two great spirits no longer wished to sit by and see earth without new life; bored with the old, they decided to make a change.

The first spirit was the spirit of fire controlling the volcanoes that helped warm the earth after the ice age. That spirit spawned six dragons—three males and three females. One female fell back into the volcano to never climb out again. Her mate, lonely and depressed, buried himself in a far-off land to never be heard from again. But thousands of years alone can drive anyone nuts.

The other dragons went on to build families. It was slow, as they could lay only one batch of eggs and hatch them. When earth was ready for each one, there had to be room and food had to be plentiful. They could not have more than four children alive at one time, just to keep their numbers down to what the earth could support, for dragons never die other than through death by other dragons.

The other spirit, who was the spirit of water, spawned a sea creature. The sea creature evolved to what is known as humans. Humans never had the population rule the dragons had, so they brought many lives into existence, never thinking of earth. Humans could die, though, so the numbers climbed and fell like the sun

The dragons made rules not to harm the humans other than in self-defense and to be at one with nature. The humans helped each other to build and learn how to build new things to make life easier. They built tools that could harm each other and destroy nature, and they killed each other to get the same tools. This was the greed a short lifespan caused.

Elves were from the same strain as humans with just one twist: they lived a long life—more than three thousand years—and they were at one with nature. Elves were never seen, as they lived in the forest. Most of them were like druids, who lived off the land in harmony with nature. The only time the elves fought was self-defense or to help others in need.

We are all part of the ancients, and who said change is good?

The dragons stayed out of view to keep an eye out as guardians over the humans. They kept the humans alive as much as they could, but one day they had to try to stop them from destroying themselves—and earth along the way. The dragons watched over nature along with the elves. This was a simple task, as nature looked after itself. The humans, on other hand, turned out to be harder to take care of than they thought, as humans sought power more than anything.

The humans saw the dragons as the most powerful force on earth, and the kings tried for many years to take this power from them. Most of the dragons understood this need for power, for they had power from day one and dealt with it the right way. Humans did not understand or control this power. If they had it, they used it against each other, killing off everything in their path just to have the most power.

One day, the dragons hoped they would find a human that would see the good in others and not destroy just because he could. After thousands of years, they gave up hope that they would ever find such a human.

How would Loot, a happy-go-lucky orphan boy help the dragons with their search to find the one they longed for? How could a small boy in basket just picked up in the midst of the great wars change the course of evil and good for humans and nature?

Humans had destroyed so much of their land and their humanity, as they called it. They had to find something to blame all this destruction on to make them feel better, so they created gods. Each clan had its own god, and some clans had many gods. Believing in gods gave their men strength and guidance. The guidance came from the men that had the most power. They told the others that their god had told them how everything was to be.

According to the ancients, there was very little left of the earth that was in the same shape as on the day time had started. Only two of the original dragons still lived. Mithrex, the greatest of them all and the oldest, lived a solitary life in the Sahara Desert. He left the desert only to visit his family or to set things right when nature got off course. He had not left the desert for over one hundred years.

The other was Thaldon, Mithrex’s brother, who hibernated underground. He had been asleep for most of the time he had been alive, coming to surface every fifty thousand years. He had only thirty years left before having to surface for food. Mithrex would be there when Thaldon came to surface. He Thaldon would not be pleased with how few dragons followed the rules. While he was above ground, Thaldon kept peace by destroying all that challenged him.

The story you are about to read is not just a story. It is part of the memories of the ancients. Memories are the scrolls that cannot be destroyed by humans. I know this to be true, as these memories have been told to me by the main character of this story, my dear friend.

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1

IN THE DAYS OF THE GREAT WARS

One day, more than three thousand years ago, before recorded time, kings were Vikings and Vikings were kings. These were dark times in the place humans knew as home—earth. In these dark times, war was just part of life. Some kings sent their men to war for all the wrong things. The dark kings sent men out so they might gain more power for their kingdoms. So the scale was tipped from time to time. Dark magic on the evil side made the dark kings harder and harder to defeat.

What was needed was something or someone to keep the scale level—or tipped in favor of the good. Some of the great kings had not been influenced by greed. These great kings made a pact to keep things in check and keep their people safe—not kill them in meaningless wars. This was what humans needed, but now the wars had been brought to their gates. They would have to get stronger or find their own magic to save children like Loot and their families and to keep them free in the future.

There were only a few large kingdoms left in South Bend in the far south, where the land started to bend back west and then north again. This was the most scenic area on earth. An ocean was on one side and a forest on the other. The forest ran all the way to the Smoking Mountains. If you could find your way to this place, you would never go back; you could not see the sky or the ground because your eyes would sting from the smoke. This was the home to the largest clan of fire-breathing beasts. The elders called it the home of the Wind Clan dragons. South Bend had park-like forests to boast about, but it was not always safe there.

Loot grew up in South Bend, and it was a great home for the young to grow and run free—if they stayed out of the forest. Loot had started his life at a place called Trans Lease, a busy place. All the trading in the land was done there, and it had been for a few hundred years. The trade ships came from a far-off land called Al-Mamlaka Al-Maghribiyya to do trade with the farmers of the region. The farmers had meadows and gardens on the river flats. The town had docks that seemed to reach to the moon and a pride that could be topped by none.

Then there was Fair Well, the coldest, darkest hole ever. Its inhabitants would act like friends, but the evil side of them would rear its ugly head and make them your worst enemy. Their black magic made the town and everyone that lived there the worst you could imagine. In Fair Well, the dead roamed.

A great raid took place at Trans Lease’s palace, the stronghold of the Vikings, which had the biggest docks on the cost. But this raid was not to gain power, as the warriors had been sent there by their king for one reason: to return power to the ones that deserved it. It was to return the rule to the people until they had a true king—not the one that had taken it by force. Trans Lease was under the rule of a great king that was kind to the ones he ruled over and treated them fairly.

But the king was caught off guard by an evil force. His wife was killed in her coach while coming back from a day trip to the outer markets, for the royal family made purchases from all the shops under its rule. Just as the king found out about his wife’s death, the palace came under attack and was overcome. The beast leading the attack was Drean the brother of the king of Fair Well. The people of the town of Fair Well would kill women and children without hesitation. They looked and smelled like the dead, for they had white skin, sunken eyes, and yellow teeth.

The king of Trans Lease was killed in front of all his loyal followers, and the crown was placed on the head of the evil leader of the raid. Nothing would ever be the same for Trans Lease.

When King Trea, a big, blond, happy Viking from South Bend, heard about this, he sent his army to the town’s aid, in hopes of restoring some peace in the town and returning the rule to the palace. When they arrived, they knew the true king was already dead, so they swept in fast and hard. The evil Drean could not have seen it coming, or he would have held his men back from celebrating; his army was drunk from the spoils of their victory, and most had passed out. The rest had left for their hometowns with slaves for their king, Ventas Stalon This would be the last time they set foot in the town of Trans Lease if the powers had anything to say about it.

King Trea’s army stormed the palace like a lightning bolt in a hailstorm. No one saw the attack coming, and no target could withstand its force. No one knows how Drean died that night, as he dropped dead when Trea’s men burst into the throne room. He died in front of them with no one even near him; his wound just appeared. Mysterious as this was, they thought it had to be self-inflicted to prevent capture.

An orphan child captured outside the palace at the war’s end was named Loot and given to the youngest man in the raid, Steinar, as a joke. Years before, when armies had fought wars for land, they were unpaid. The warriors had made a rule: when a war was won, the treasures of the defeated went first to the strongest and bravest. These gifts were called loot. Loot could be anything from gold to livestock. The war was not for treasures or land, and nothing was to be taken.

Loot was to be a slave to Steinar rather than left for dead. As the son of the greatest warlord ever, Steinar had all the wealth of his dead father. To kings, this was nothing, but to warlords, it was a king’s ransom. When they snatched Loot, they had no idea whose son he was; they just knew he was an orphan, and now he would live out his life with Steinar and his wife.

Steinar was a kind man. He had come along that day only to do what was expected of him, and he did it well. He looked into the big blue eyes of the young, blond boy, and the connection was made. He could not treat a Viking child as a slave; Steinar would treat him the way he himself would want to be treated if he had found himself on the steps that day.

The only thing he would change would be Loot’s upbringing. For he and his wife were unable to have children, and when he came home with the young boy, she said that they should call Loot their son and raise him that way. Loot was only about six months old and would never know that he was meant to be a slave. He was a happy child, running and playing games with the other kids, and making toys from wood and stones.

Loot was a special child. He was liked by everyone, and he liked everyone he met. Something pulled him to Trans Lease as he went on every trading trip with his father or family friends. The Great War was still present in the minds of the townsfolk. The damage was still in the streets, and the fear was still on the faces of the adults in the markets. Loot had no way of knowing he would one day make these townsfolk feel safe again. He was no warrior; he never harmed a flea.

At the age of ten, Loot made a cart for his mother that she used for shopping. It didn’t look like much, but it worked well and was her pride and joy. This was his biggest accomplishment. How would this young orphan boy change the lives of the ones he loved and everyone he came in contact with?

The evil men had not come to farm the land or build settlements, as they would take by force what others had built and farmed. The men the towns folk called evil came from another land and had nothing to lose. They built their armies of many, so they did not have to be strong; their numbers made up for their lack of strength. The lords that led them, like Drean, would never be called kings, for a king must think of his people and his land first.

The dragons of the mountains sat back and watched the humans destroy what they had worked so hard to build. They had hoped that one day humans would see that wars drive them backwards never letting them advance.

The wars had to be stopped before humans became part of the destruction of earth as we know it. Humans were like beasts of disaster; if they were not stopped soon, they would soon have nothing to fight for. Humans had worked so hard to destroy anything they did not understand or have as their own, they would soon end their own existence on earth. Some had gods they told their men to fight for; they said their gods would give them the strength and power they needed. The gods would not kill what they had created or destroy what they had made. Why would they take the time create if they were going to kill? The gods were just a ploy by the humans in power; they were blamed for misfortunes when things did not go the way humans would have liked.

The only strength now lay in nature and in powers that humans could not control or cause to conform to their ways. The hidden and most powerful being in this strange land were the dragons and the invisible humans. Unicorns had all but vanished, never to be seen again. Some said they had been killed; others told stories of herds moving across the land and never stopping.

The only hope the humans had was to bring the forces of nature back together. But the unicorns were gone forever, and the Elfish Clan did not come around anymore. The only thing left was to try to gain the power of the dragons, that together they might save earth.

Mithrex,