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  If you enjoyed this short story from Roger Laird please look for his other works at RogerLairdWriting.com and refer this story to your friends. On this webpage you can leave feedback directly for the author and pose any questions directly to him. You will also find a preview of Legacy: Beginnings. The preface and chapters 1-6 are available to the public as well as up to date information about the release. You will also find other short stories and original poems from Roger Laird on the webpage.

  Legacy: A Father’s Tale

  Over a thousand years has passed since The Great Disaster changed the geography of our world forever. Technology has fallen away from the world and feudal society has emerged again. New warriors have taken up the weapons of older times. General Tao Blight has risen to meet his fate and fight alongside them as the leader of Aodhan's First Royal Army. His fellow soldiers and countrymen have freely given him their respect, but they might start to question where his loyalties lay if they found out his true heritage.  

  Tao has not always belonged to the country he now serves. His childhood home was located in the disputed territories, far closer to the Naichian Empire’s border than the border of the Aodhan Kingdom. There had been a time when his father kept a strong stance of neutrality when it came to matters regarding the feuding countries, but his ideal of neutrality could not persevere when his homeland was the subject of dispute.

  Tao's mother was murdered after his father enlisted in the Imperial Military. Her death served as the catalyst that drove Tao and his father to opposite sides of an extreme conflict. Now, Tao is on the brink of ending the war once and for all. But how will he cope when he is forced to face the memories of his complex past?  

  Join Tao in LEGACY: A FATHER’S TALE as he attempts to create a new legacy and fights for the peace his world so greatly desires.

  Preface

  Not long after the beginning of the twenty first century, an event occurred in nature that was driven by the actions of men. The scientific rules that govern the world were stretched to their limits. As the rules could not be broken, the world snapped back to correct its position in the universe. The result of this event would later become known as The Great Disaster. At the time of The Great Disaster there were over ten billion humans living on Earth, nearly all perished in The Great Disaster. Many more died in the chaos that followed.

  The only portions of the known world that are inhabitable by humans at the time this story begins are the portions of the world that sat on the Eurasian and African tectonic plates. The world bulged out beneath the Eastern hemisphere, raising the elevations of the major tectonic plates in that portion of the world. The African plate slammed into the Eurasian plate, forming the highest mountain ranges ever known and merging the two continents into one. The other plates were mostly covered by water when the polar ice caps broke apart and melted, causing ocean levels to rise. Any survivors in the mountainous regions still above water were evacuated to the sole surviving continent.

  Much of the blame fell on the scientific community and, as unlikely as it may seem, all technology and most sciences were destroyed in a process lasting hundreds of years. Society fell apart, rose again, and crumbled, in a vicious cycle. Eventually, groups banned together, forming the new countries of the Aodhan Kingdom and the Naichian Empire. These countries became reflections of the ideals that ancient countries stood for long before The Great Disaster.

  Over a thousand years has passed since The Great Disaster. Humanity is a mere shadow of its former self. Feudalism won out as a way of life, and has been practiced with far greater success than had ever been achieved in the past. A great peace was won and it lasted many years. A neutral territory’s leader, in his greed, created cause for war between the last two civilizations on the Earth. Now a new generation of warriors must rise up to meet fate and leave their legacy on the world.

  Legacy

  A Father’s Tale

  Available Now

  Poetry From Roger Laird

  I Love thee

  One may not love thee so

  Yet, given chance to love

  May change faces

  Locked behind garden walls

  Sit thee in the heat of day

  Crying the world away

  And doors remain shut

  In thine hands thine heart asunder

  Thou spend thy soul

  To avoid a blunder

  Walls such as these deter all that come

  Yet I stay forth, striving to reach within

  Be it to care for thee

  Such a mortal sin

  Then dead I’d ready be

  To care not would be my wrong

  And to wrong thee is my fear and my pain

  Thus I be so profane

  When in thy presence stay I

  Wishing for favor in thine eye

  Love not known yet love be sworn

  In disguise it lay for fear of scorn

  Sprouting wings to fly away

  For secrets cannot remain

  Given chance, risking mistake

  And worse, causing pain to thee

  I know all at stake

  And ask only for you to see

  I love thee

  Boundless Ends

  In a forest of many years stood two trees alike

  Of some yesterday were towering

  Two dragons, gone bad, in the sky

  Seeking vengeance for things thought stolen

  Turned course for there

  Guided by some unknown rage

  A hate welled up that no one knew

  The first dragon came of early mourn

  Engulfing the branches with its fire

  Leaving a gaping hole where it struck

  And the animals housed by this tree

  Frantic and worried

  Made their way down the branches

  The creatures of the forest came

  To watch the horrid sight

  Now the inhabitants of the second tree

  Had heard of the tragedy of the first

  And began to scamper down the trunk

  As they did, they heard a call in the midst of it all

  To return to business now

  Moments later the second fury came

  A dragon in the sky

  Hitting the second tree with an even greater force

  The sight seen by the whole forest

  Bringing an awe to the creatures

  Showing them how vulnerable they were

  And then more tragedy

  The second tree fell

  Taking creatures into its trap

  As it came crashing down

  It took other trees with it

  And then the first tree fell

  A sight that was sad to see

  And as darkness poured in

  The realization that the forest had changed

  Hit hardest in the woods surrounding

  When the fireflies usually gathered to sit upon the trees

  Lighting up the skies

  And now the greatest lanterns of all

  Were gone forever