On the west bank of the Shendoa River on the darkest night and last new moon of spring, the Wescendant tribe commences Juna’s plan to cross it and rescue their Arch. From the beachhead they begin rolling large logs into the river in an uninhabited area downstream between Lepe Point and its terminus at the southern sea. As the logs roll into the river afloat, the warriors rush down the beach and leap onto the logs having connected them with rope. With the logs straightened in a line across the river, the western warriors balance across them and breach the eastern bank, setting foot in E’scend for the first time.
The crusaders are immediately attacked by archers on the night watch with speeding arrows, sharp and narrow. The Wescendants find that the aloe plant heals their warriors shot by arrows, however those pierced by poisonous darts succumb to their injuries. Slaying the archers and securing the eastern beachhead the intruders roll more logs into the river, partially damming it and forming a bridge between the two lands. Primed for battle, the western tribe’s full compliment of forces crosses the river. Under the cover of darkness, Kaedan leads the platoon of forty warriors towards Escenda to liberate it and their forefather Aedan.
At the culmination of the four-year war between their tribes, the Wescendants and Escendants commence the colossal clash to determine the control and future of their lands. As daybreak nears with the solstice approaching, the crusaders have lost their element of surprise. From a hightower atop Escenda’s tallest cypress tree, a budding bowman issues a war cry by way of song using an elk horn, alerting the eastern tribe of the invasion along with an ear-piercing raven. Reaching the capital village at sunrise, the western intruders engage in combat with Escendant archers and massive gladiators trained in secret. Arch Kaedan capably leads the platoon in close quarter combat; however, they are outclassed by the eastern titans and well-fortified bowmen.
Battle of Cunaxa, Babylonia – September 3rd, 401 B.C.
Hearing the war cry from the nearby redwood compound, Aedan demands its meaning. His sweet lily-pad pleads to her husband that their enemies the Wescendants have invaded their homeland, with intents to eradicate their tribe and bloodline. Steeling himself, Aedan promises to defend Lily and their children against any threats at home or abroad. Aedan and Lily assign their eldest Tilian to guard their infant and adopted twins, armed with a dagger. As Lily hands Aedan a sword he joins the Archess’ loyal lieutenant Pai-san outside the fortified redwood compound, guarding it against the advancing invaders. Atop the arbor capital’s cypress, the Archess and her avian summon the raven’s dark magick to call upon baerres and coyotes from the mountains, and pantheras and jaguaros from the canyonlands. Possessing the mammalian predators and the giant hawk she directs them to the Escenda village, while commanding arctic wolves to ambush the Wescendant children hiding in caves across the river.
As the deadly battle for the fate of Crescendo rages on in the capital for days, both factions have been cut in half by the other in close combat. Their tribes’ numbers are now down to twenty on either side. On the morning of the solstice, with a mighty roar the jaguaros and hulking baerres attack the western warriors, killing five more. As the crusaders are outmatched, they are forced to retreat west towards the Shendoa River. Fleeing to the river at Lepe Point well north of the new log bridge across, they are cornered on three sides by the remaining Escandant gladiators and the predator beasts. A warrior couple wades into the river towards home, and the pair is immediately washed away downstream. As Arch Kaedan orders the remaining warriors to stand their ground, the Wescendants’ futile attempt has failed and their entire tribe now faces imminent annihilation.
The earnest Eleven to the east have reached the redwood compound, after the treetop archers impeding their path joined the ensuing conflict. They see Aedan standing freely outside the redwood and presume his captors answered the war cry as well. Believing they have succeeded in rescuing their rightful Arch, Q’isann calls Aedan’s name who does not recognize his own nor these interlopers. Waving at him, Q’isann and Lyla approach Aedan and announce they have come to rescue him while he shoos them away.
With Lyla at his side Q’isann falls to his knees before Aedan his once-and-future Arch, and says he has come to take him home to We’scend. With no memory of his former life there, Aedan no longer recalls his former second-in-command. He is outraged that Q’isann and his armed guild have invaded his home, and demands that they leave his homeland at once. Just on the redwood’s other side, Sho-lin faces his old prodigy Pai-san. Sho-lin implores his former apprentice to join their guild and defeat the Archess. However, Pai-san has been under her spell for as long as he can remember. He attacks Sho-lin, and the two engage in combat with their swords.
Mila and Dilian rush inside the redwood and find their twin offspring. Tilian – Aedan’s firstborn son with Lily – defends the adult twins and starts to assault unarmed Dilian with his dagger, but the twins melodically chant together for Tilian to not harm their father. With the crooked chameleon nowhere to be found in the wood Dilian, Mila and their twins reunite for the first time as a family. Assuring they are safe inside the redwood, Dilian runs out to locate the deceiver. He joins Q’isann and Lyla at their side, facing Aedan. As the original chiefs of the two tribes stand face to face for the first time, Dilian recognizes the pain in Aedan’s eyes and offers his good hand to Aedan in a sign of peace.
The former prisoner’s eyes are widened as he recognizes his nemesis. He must be the conjurer who arrested him after the first aria, imprisoning and beating him under the redwood for years. He kidnapped Aedan’s lily, and according to her account treated her poorly. Now, this villain has raided the house where his wife, son and adopted twins live, wearing the face of Aedan’s lily to torment him. Not remembering Dilian’s name after four years, he stammers the first words that come to his fractured mind. “You… you…”
“Judas!” He snarls at Dilian, lunging at him with his sword. As Aedan swings for his head, Q’yn uses her spear to defend Dilian and engages Aedan in combat. The trio of paladins stand behind Aedan, sworn to rescue and defend their rightful Arch, as the younger two swordsmen encroach on Q’yn. Stopping them from attacking her, the eldest Pah-lud orders them not to interfere with the duel between their guildswoman and Arch, while Lyla stands between them and the trio of paladins. The two trackers restrain the raging Aedan as they defend Dilian.
Bob Dylan, May 17th 1966 Free Trade Hall, Manchester, England
On the other side of the towering redwood, scornful Pai-san continues attacking his former master who parries his blows and implores him to cease. Given no alternative, Sho-lin swings his sword at Pai-san’s feet and slices off part of his foot to disable him. Pai-san screams and falls onto the grass bleeding profusely, while Sho-lin runs around the tree to re-join the guild. Restrained once again by Dilian and his accomplices, Aedan growls and lets out a primal scream silencing the birds in the wood. Sho-lin advises them all to lower their swords, as Xo-nan and Su-rin loosen their grip on Aedan on Dilian’s request. Breaking down, Aedan begs his demand that they leave him and his family alone. Dilian states that that he is not the one who has taken Aedan’s family and his dreams away from him.
Dilian explains he and Aedan have only ever met once, from across the river twenty-six years ago today. He is certain of the date because he was his own twenty-first birthday, and recalls first trying apple wine with Mila that night beneath their new redwood home. Dilian regrets that half of his life and his families’ lives have passed since then while estranged from her, escaping his responsibilities to write poems within the lonely mountain. Having not fully considered the weight of his actions and needs of his muse, their twin children and tribe, Dilian snickers and hangs his head while realizing this catastrophe is largely his own fault.
Dilian senses his impostor commanding the great battle just west of them at the capital village, and asserts that he must challenge the chameleon at once to stop the bloodshed. Sho-lin affirms and says he and Mila will protect the children and maintain peace at the redwood. Humbled, Aedan now joins Dilian and the band of nine westward towards the fatal clash.
As Dilian, Aedan, Q’isann and the guild enter the capital treetown Escenda, it is largely destroyed in the ongoing battle. The possessed beasts attack the guild, killing the lynxes and Qyn’s dire wolf. At the shoreline Arch Kaedan, Juna and ten surviving Wescendants face certain death by the eastern titans, baerres and prowling felines under a murky mystic spell. High above the clash, its overlord stands atop a lone cypress tree with an archer and a raven perched in the impenetrable hightower.
Oldest cypress tree near Sanford, Florida, >2,000 years old
Viewing the approaching guild below, the Archess commands her beasts and orders the gladiators to eradicate the troupe and their depleted platoon immediately. As the titans rush the western warriors at the shore, the predatory brutes suddenly raise their heads with their ears perked. Approaching them at the point Dilian and Q’yn abruptly engage in song together, persuading the beasts to desist.
Trapped at the shoreline with her brother Kaedan, Juna joins the duo in singing. As they can only subdue the animals with pure intent, they cannot command them to attack the Escendants. Instead they convince the baerres and coyotes to return to their hillside caves, and the jaguaros and pantheras to the canyonlands. Across the river, the wolfpack hounding the children’s hideaway hears the song and retreats north to the mountains.
Unable to control her mammalian army, the Archess and her raven concoct a deafening maelstrom unto them from the cypress treetower above. Thunderclaps ring out as the skies darken around them, and lightning bolts strike two Wescendants dead at the river shore. The earth around them starts to tremble, as the combatants fall off their feet. Without warning, from the north a single gigantic wave roars down the Shendoa River towards them.
As the remaining eastern titans and western warriors flee the shoreline, half of them make it to the village and half of them from both sides are washed downstream by the tsunami. Of the Wescendant tribe only Arch Kaedan, Q’isann, Lyla, Q’yn and two paladins remain; the others including Juna have been lost to the river. Only four gladiators and the archer protecting the Archess remain of the Escendant army, and they quickly resume clashing with the crusaders in the village.
As the tribes duel to death with swords and axes Q’yn defends her Arch Kaedan against a gladiatorial assault, and he returns the favor while slaying another. In the melee, the noble warrior Q’isann is smothered to death by a towering titan. Using their combined skill and might, Q’yn, Lyla, Kaedan and the duo of paladins defeat the last three gladiators together, however both remaining paladins are slain in combat.
Arch Kaedan, Q’yn and Lyla are now all that remains of their tribe, along with Kaedan’s parents nearby. As they peer up at the cypress hightower in anger, Aedan approaches the concluded clash with Tilian pursuing from a distance. Kaedan finally reunites with his father while Q’yn is inconsolable over the lifeless body of hers, as is Lyla as her gallant husband lies dead.
Concurrently across the river in Wescenda, Ivera alone had defended the tribe’s children at a downcast shelter she had called Lound’a, holding the possessed werewolves at bay until the pack abated. Just after the roaring river’s deluge, she hears an urgent melodic call that she immediately recognizes as her daughter’s. Rushing to the Shendoa, she finds that it has completely depleted and is now merely a stream. Viewing from a distance her kin Kaedan, Aedan and the concluding clash on the other side, she heads to the log bridge built just before the prolonged battle of Escenda.
At the new bridge she finds her daughter Juna alive along with a noble swordsmen Pah-lud, a Wescendant couple, and a few eastern archers. They had been carried downstream by the tsunami, until the logjam stopped some of them from washing out to sea. After aiding each other from drowning with help from Ivera, they were pacified and ceased their feud. A sole Escendant gladiator also survived the flood, but soon lumbered off into the jungle. Ivera, Juna and the few others make their way to the eastern capital to reunite with their remaining kin and put an end to this debacle once and for all.
Atop Escenda’s towering cypress, Dilian has carefully climbed to its treetop where the conjurer awaits him. Sneaking up on the archer and pushing him off the tree, Dilian is attacked not by the perched raven but a giant hawk. After nearly falling from the treetop himself while evading it, his flock of falcons quickly come to his aid harassing the hawk and disabling its wings. Dilian enters the hightower to confront his impostor at last.
“Bloody Storm” by Janka Lateckova (depicting Tolkien’s Wars of Beleriand; courtesy TolkienGateway)
CHAPTER TEN ~ The Reckoning
Musical accompaniment for context
Ambient Instrumental Score: “Tabula Rasa” ~ Part 7 of 7
“Crescendo Chapters 9 & 10 Score ~ v1” (04:03)
Containing segments of ” Tabula Rasa”
Part VII: Resonatian
“Tabula Rasa” ~ A musical representation of the past, present and future of life on planet Earth
Composed & recorded 2010 by William Kurzenberger; Released on the album Solitary Road © 2010
Created and written by Bill Kurzenberger, December 2025 ~ All Rights Reserved