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Description
As the tale around Rakan, or Scythe, as she choose to call herself, comes to a close, some notes to the character are in order.

She was born on a DOS based word processor from a niche software suite (that to my surprise survives to this day it seems for use in doctors' offices) at the beginning of the 1990s. Back then her name was Anacia.
Her first appearance was also more or less her last - it tells of another venture of Mago, Lucius and her into Gaul and ends with the death of both her and Lucius during a surprise raid instigated by the sinister druid Vernodrik.

From this short episode by now a multiverse of stories and background has developed, much of it long before creative writing, worldbuilding or even the internet where known to anyone beyond a few.
Even though she is only present in about a quarter or the first book, Aurora Borealis, she's pretty much at the core of it.

I actually did some sketches on her long ago, but recent advances in 3D Suites like DAZ finally made it possible to put her into a visual form, an exiting journey to say the least. For that I picked up her youth and events that are not told in Aurora at all. While the chance meeting and the dialogue between her and Mago is part of the book, this is the first time that it is covered in detail.

So here are some final parts of her story, told to Mago by the leaders of the Kalyb Scythians, Skilur and Vadaszany, after he ordered a massacre on a treacherous village at the shores of the Borysthenes, a river today know as Dnjepr. It's a grim story, without the uneasy need to find some excuses in madness or fanatism as dragged into the character of Daenerys in Game of Thrones. It's rooted in the depressing duality of the human state between the monster and the angel, in a world where survival of one means the death of another and even peace and love rest on a pile of bones rising from the dawn of mankind. The fire has been always burning, indeed.

A little synopsis on the events in between: Mago by birth is the heir and owner of a decent sized landhold in Spain, that is managed by his younger brother, Gabal. He returns there after her death, and after a period of depression gets involved in local affairs again, also living with a freed slave woman, Maat, with whom he has a daughter, Elischa. Maat dies of a sickness some years later, though, and Mago get's drawn into the wars between the Romans under Caesar and revolting native federations. He joins Caesar to become a trusted cavalry commander. After that he sets out to scout the eastern provinces and their support for Pompeius, but also to find some clues about Scythe and her past. He comes upon a band of Scythians on the steppes beyond the Crimean peninsula and joins them in a desperate winter flight and battles against pursuing mercenaries from Pontus and Cappadocia. Returning, the Scythians come upon a river village where they were betrayed to Pharnaces, and Mago, suddenly remembering similar events from a distant past, orders the wholesale slaughter of all inhabitants in rage, which the Scythians desperate for supplies and vengeful, readily obey, even though Skilur is their actual warchief.

The events told to Mago in the following excerpt date back to around 700 BC, after the fight between Scythe and the Kendru had ended in a standoff and she had returned from the Altai.

The old hunter sat down next to Mago and drank from his mug. "It's a very old story, you know, a legend, and I don't know if it's true. Maybe you know better than I do. So old, that it may have been different than told today, you see. Many hundred winters ago, the Scythians were the lords of this land. There was another tribe, the Cimmerians, but we drove them away. In those days the Sarmatians still lived in the east, near the Hyrkanian Sea."

"Back then a warrior came to the Sarmatians. It is said she was wild as the storm and hard as the winter, and she gave them new desires and a taste for conquest. She became a mighty princess, a confidante of the royal house, and a high priestress. The Sarmatians attacked us, defeated us. There was some alliance between the Sarmatians and the Cimmerians, and treason, and we did not know what happened, but this warrior suddenly appeared at the court of Targitaos, our king at that time. She was in bad shape, injured, and betrayed, and she offered her service to the king against our very enemies."

"Of course he had heard of her, and his advisors counceled to kill her, as retribution, others to use her knowledge against them. He decreed that she had to defeat three Scythian warriors of his choice to prove her worth, otherwise her fate would be punishment and death. In front of the assembly she vanquished two of the best fighers, but then she had to fight Targitaos himself, and after a long fight, she lost. He beat her down and had her brought to his tents."

"Nobody knows what happened in that night, but on the next morning Targitaos proclaimed mercy for her, due to her weakened and injured state, and also, that if every Scythian had to prove his fighting worth by beating him, the king, then they would soon be a people of mudrakers and swineherds. So he choose another opponent whom she defeated. She became his right hand, and called herself Scythia from then on. But her bodyguard changed that into Scythe, and it stuck."

The hunter exchanged a look with Skilur, the latter silent. Did it bode well? Mago had acted over the head of the warchief, and the tribe had followed him. But they were friends, and the Kalyb needed them both.

"Some say that Scythe had seduced Targitaos that night, others that he found her too valuable to depose, and some, that he knew, that she had let him win on purpose and for respect of the king, and that was held most likely. It is told that she soon recovered to be a mighty and handsome warrior, but she never became Targitaos' concubine. As he grew older, his sons proved to be unworthy, and he made her his adopted heiress. She was a war leader even beyond Targitaos himself, but she was always loyal to the king. She defeated the Persians under Dareios, took bloody revenge on the Sarmatians and drove the Cimmerians and wiped them from the earth."

"Sarmatian songs tell of her that she came from the icy highlands of the east, from the mountains that had been the home of the steppe folk at the beginning of time, and that she held a hate for the Cimmerians from a time before even that. She lead the Scythians from victory to victory and barely changed all those years, and when Targitaos died, she had a magnificent tomb erected for him, with hundreds of sacrifices and vast treasures from the war. And then she was crowned Leipoxana, the Godqueen. It is told that she took lovers among her favoured warriors, but she never had any children. One day she and her bodyguard left to pursue some fled remnants of the Cimmerians into the west and never returned. But she demanded that her tale be recorded, for one day a Stranger would come to ask for her and her deeds, and that he must be answered. And we think you are that Stranger..."

"

DAZ3D Iray Render, Topaz & PS post work.

Photo by Markus Spiske temporausch.com from Pexels

Image gallery: www.deviantart.com/magnus-stri…

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Description
As the tale around Rakan, or Scythe, as she choose to call herself, comes to a close, some notes to the character are in order.

She was born on a DOS based word processor from a niche software suite (that to my surprise survives to this day it seems for use in doctors' offices) at the beginning of the 1990s. Back then her name was Anacia.
Her first appearance was also more or less her last - it tells of another venture of Mago, Lucius and her into Gaul and ends with the death of both her and Lucius during a surprise raid instigated by the sinister druid Vernodrik.

From this short episode by now a multiverse of stories and background has developed, much of it long before creative writing, worldbuilding or even the internet where known to anyone beyond a few.
Even though she is only present in about a quarter or the first book, Aurora Borealis, she's pretty much at the core of it.

I actually did some sketches on her long ago, but recent advances in 3D Suites like DAZ finally made it possible to put her into a visual form, an exiting journey to say the least. For that I picked up her youth and events that are not told in Aurora at all. While the chance meeting and the dialogue between her and Mago is part of the book, this is the first time that it is covered in detail.

So here are some final parts of her story, told to Mago by the leaders of the Kalyb Scythians, Skilur and Vadaszany, after he ordered a massacre on a treacherous village at the shores of the Borysthenes, a river today know as Dnjepr. It's a grim story, without the uneasy need to find some excuses in madness or fanatism as dragged into the character of Daenerys in Game of Thrones. It's rooted in the depressing duality of the human state between the monster and the angel, in a world where survival of one means the death of another and even peace and love rest on a pile of bones rising from the dawn of mankind. The fire has been always burning, indeed.

A little synopsis on the events in between: Mago by birth is the heir and owner of a decent sized landhold in Spain, that is managed by his younger brother, Gabal. He returns there after her death, and after a period of depression gets involved in local affairs again, also living with a freed slave woman, Maat, with whom he has a daughter, Elischa. Maat dies of a sickness some years later, though, and Mago get's drawn into the wars between the Romans under Caesar and revolting native federations. He joins Caesar to become a trusted cavalry commander. After that he sets out to scout the eastern provinces and their support for Pompeius, but also to find some clues about Scythe and her past. He comes upon a band of Scythians on the steppes beyond the Crimean peninsula and joins them in a desperate winter flight and battles against pursuing mercenaries from Pontus and Cappadocia. Returning, the Scythians come upon a river village where they were betrayed to Pharnaces, and Mago, suddenly remembering similar events from a distant past, orders the wholesale slaughter of all inhabitants in rage, which the Scythians desperate for supplies and vengeful, readily obey, even though Skilur is their actual warchief.

The events told to Mago in the following excerpt date back to around 700 BC, after the fight between Scythe and the Kendru had ended in a standoff and she had returned from the Altai.

The old hunter sat down next to Mago and drank from his mug. "It's a very old story, you know, a legend, and I don't know if it's true. Maybe you know better than I do. So old, that it may have been different than told today, you see. Many hundred winters ago, the Scythians were the lords of this land. There was another tribe, the Cimmerians, but we drove them away. In those days the Sarmatians still lived in the east, near the Hyrkanian Sea."

"Back then a warrior came to the Sarmatians. It is said she was wild as the storm and hard as the winter, and she gave them new desires and a taste for conquest. She became a mighty princess, a confidante of the royal house, and a high priestress. The Sarmatians attacked us, defeated us. There was some alliance between the Sarmatians and the Cimmerians, and treason, and we did not know what happened, but this warrior suddenly appeared at the court of Targitaos, our king at that time. She was in bad shape, injured, and betrayed, and she offered her service to the king against our very enemies."

"Of course he had heard of her, and his advisors counceled to kill her, as retribution, others to use her knowledge against them. He decreed that she had to defeat three Scythian warriors of his choice to prove her worth, otherwise her fate would be punishment and death. In front of the assembly she vanquished two of the best fighers, but then she had to fight Targitaos himself, and after a long fight, she lost. He beat her down and had her brought to his tents."

"Nobody knows what happened in that night, but on the next morning Targitaos proclaimed mercy for her, due to her weakened and injured state, and also, that if every Scythian had to prove his fighting worth by beating him, the king, then they would soon be a people of mudrakers and swineherds. So he choose another opponent whom she defeated. She became his right hand, and called herself Scythia from then on. But her bodyguard changed that into Scythe, and it stuck."

The hunter exchanged a look with Skilur, the latter silent. Did it bode well? Mago had acted over the head of the warchief, and the tribe had followed him. But they were friends, and the Kalyb needed them both.

"Some say that Scythe had seduced Targitaos that night, others that he found her too valuable to depose, and some, that he knew, that she had let him win on purpose and for respect of the king, and that was held most likely. It is told that she soon recovered to be a mighty and handsome warrior, but she never became Targitaos' concubine. As he grew older, his sons proved to be unworthy, and he made her his adopted heiress. She was a war leader even beyond Targitaos himself, but she was always loyal to the king. She defeated the Persians under Dareios, took bloody revenge on the Sarmatians and drove the Cimmerians and wiped them from the earth."

"Sarmatian songs tell of her that she came from the icy highlands of the east, from the mountains that had been the home of the steppe folk at the beginning of time, and that she held a hate for the Cimmerians from a time before even that. She lead the Scythians from victory to victory and barely changed all those years, and when Targitaos died, she had a magnificent tomb erected for him, with hundreds of sacrifices and vast treasures from the war. And then she was crowned Leipoxana, the Godqueen. It is told that she took lovers among her favoured warriors, but she never had any children. One day she and her bodyguard left to pursue some fled remnants of the Cimmerians into the west and never returned. But she demanded that her tale be recorded, for one day a Stranger would come to ask for her and her deeds, and that he must be answered. And we think you are that Stranger..."

"

DAZ3D Iray Render, Topaz & PS post work.

Photo by Markus Spiske temporausch.com from Pexels

Image gallery: www.deviantart.com/magnus-stri…

Next picture:

Previous picture: