Garathir slowly drew his sword. Darkness enshrouded him, and he was afraid of this cold, desolate place. He could just remember waking up and finding boulders all around him, and insects crawling all over his body. His body ached in pain, and he saw that his clothes were all torn and he was covered is cuts and gashes from head to toe. He had no idea how he had gotten there, or how he was going to get out.

When his blade was drawn, it gave a faint glow to help illuminate his path. The gleaming sword was unfamiliar to Garithir, but he felt a comfort when he held it. He was in some sort of cave from what he could gather, but he couldn’t remember anything about it. Garathir’s hand raised to wipe his forehead, but he felt a sharp pain when he touched it. He held his dirt covered hand up to the light of his sword and saw the blood covering his palm. He could do nothing to help him remember, so he simply continued staggering forward into the darkness.

Weariness overtook Garathir after what seemed several hours of wandering, and he slumped against the corridor wall. He looked intently at the hilt of his sword, and raised it up to examine it more carefully, hoping to jog his memory. His eyes studied the pommel, then followed the glow up the blade and came to a stop at the point, where two yellow eyes lay hovering with the glowing steel separating them.

The eyes stared at Garathir for several seconds, but it felt like minutes. A deep sigh was emitted from the darkness, and the cold steel fogged from the heat of the breath. Garathir could smell the last meal of the creature before him, and knew that he was not in a position for combating such a beast. He immediately rolled to his right and heard a ferocious roar behind him as he stood! He ran, but knew that there was no way he could outrun a creature like this when in such a condition. He could hear the sound of claws tearing through the dirt behind him, and knew that the dirt would soon be replaced with his flesh if he didn’t do something fast.

Not knowing the posture of his hunter, he had to take his chances that it was a relatively short beast. Garathir skidded to a halt, bent his knees, and propelled himself backwards into the air, landing on his feet as he heard the claws scrape along the ground before him. Garathir had caught enough of a glimpse of the beast to see that it was some sort of canine. The yellow eyes met with his once more, and the mere sight of the eyes struck fear in the heart of Garathir, for he knew not if he was a warrior, but the creature hunting him obviously was.

He held his sword with an outstretched arm, as if trying to keep it at bay with a torch. The hound leapt towards him, but he threw the beast of darkness over his head before they hit the ground. The glowing blade slid across the floor, and Garathir saw a yellow powder on the ground by the boulders that had caved in. In a sudden flash, everything started making sense to him! Someone had tried to kill him, he even remembered the explosion that nearly finished him!

“Garathir! What the…!” The shout came from behind him, but he didn’t know who it was.

The claws of the dark hound penetrated his belly and tore it open, and he could see the fangs of the beast he had been combating inches from his face. But in an instant, a twang of a bowstring sounded through the cavern and the hound fell upon the ground beside Garathir, an arrow protruding from its skull.

“Garathir, Garathir! What happened? I heard the explosion, and figured that it was Malin, so I came immediately. Are you okay?”

Garathir responded only with a sigh and a blood-drowned gurgle.

The stranger ran to Garathir and laid his hands upon his wounds. A tingling sensation came over Garathir and a light emitted from the man’s hands. After several seconds, the wound had healed and all the aching in Garathir’s body was gone.

They both rose and looked at each other. Garathir didn’t know what to say, so he just started talking, “Thank you for saving me. I’m sure I know who you are, because you seemed to know me. However, I can’t remember anything right now…”

His words trailed off and wooziness overtook him. He fell forward into the man’s arms, and the stranger seemed a bit confused as to what was going on. He laid Garathir on the ground and said, “Garathir, I’m not sure what’s wrong with you, but you need to rest now.”

Garathir looked up at the man and realized that he was an old friend. His blond hair, his blue eyes, the green tunic and Elven carved bow; this was his companion Peramor. He remembered all that had happened, he remembered Malin, the man who tried to kill him, and he remembered the yellow alchemic substance used to create the explosion. Garathir stood up, brushed himself off, and embraced his friend Peramor. “It has been odd not knowing you, Peramor. I owe you my life once again, and my memory. That must have been some spell to create a cave-in like that!”

A deep voice rose from the shadows, “It’s too bad you had to survive, I’ll have to kill you both now. You have stood between me and the power held within the artifacts of this temple long enough! I shall retrieve all of them without disruption, starting with that sword!”

Malin sent a jolt of electricity through Peramor, and the young man fell to the ground screaming. Garathir jumped for the sword, but the cloaked man appeared between him and the glowing blade. Garathir was being held in the air by his throat, but before he could retaliate, he was slammed against the wall by an unseen force. All he could do was lie against the wall helplessly as Malin picked up the sword. Garathir summoned the strength to stand again, and began walking towards Malin.

Malin chuckled, “What are you going to do? I have the Sword of Gynther and you are just a weakling mortal without a weapon!”

It was too dark to make out anything more than shapes except what was near the glowing blade. As Garathir came closer, Malin started getting annoyed with his persistence. He swung the sword to decapitate Garathir, but the blade was ducked and a broken arrow was produced in Garathir’s hand. In one instant, the arrow was lodged in Malin’s throat and both he and his sword fell to the cold, bloody ground.

A legend emerged from the caves, with a man over his shoulder, a sword in one hand, and a head in the other.