Prologue:

There is a star out on the edge of one of the spiral arms of the galaxy, an incredibly old star, swollen with age and slowly, by degrees measured in eons, it is dying. Once it housed a bevy of planets, from small rocky spheres with no atmosphere to speak of, all the way up to twin gas giants, circling one another in a great cosmic dance as they in turn orbited the ancient sun, their very gases being sucked from one to the other and back again as their gravities battled, too equally matched for an eventual victor. When it was young the star burned a bright, almost white, yellow, vibrant and full of energy. In those days it was visited by the Elder Race, those ancient, space-faring beings whose great War shaped the galaxy of today. Before the War they would visit the star to see the twin gas giants, to marvel at the beauty of the star itself, and to peer out into the void between galaxies, for the star is positioned such that if one parks ones space-craft in far orbit on the side of the star from the rest of the galaxy then the view in one direction is dominated solely by the stars light, and in the other there is near-complete inky blackness.

However that was many eons past and now the star is dying. It has swollen with age, swallowing the inner planets, including those great twin giants, leaving only one rocky giant on the outskirts. Even this planet, however, is not as it once was. A victim of the Elders War, the rocky giant was broken into a thousand pieces by some unimaginable strength and left to orbit in a mocking parody of its former self, the vast chunks of rock left by the breaking held in a rough sphere by an unknown force.

A monument to former glory, to the ancient beauty of the galaxy and to the rage of the Elders, the Shattered Planet has served as a cautionary tale since its discovery by other, younger space-farers. Yet it is more than that, it is a testament to the enduring nature of life in a cruel and uncaring galaxy for on the surface of one of the great shards of the broken planet there is life. None know how it was accomplished but when the world was broken, it was done with surprising delicacy and many of the great chunks of rock, some as big as some of the smaller former inhabitants of the stars gravity, retained their surface soil layer, atmosphere and what meagre life there was on the surface. Most of the shards have since been mined out, or collided with one another, or had their remaining atmosphere stripped away over the millennia, but one survived intact and on the massive rock, life not only survived, but it flourished. Over the ages the star system has been ignored by the younger space-farers in favour of more vibrant and hopeful destinations, but left to its own devices the life on the great rock of the Shattered Planet has evolved to intelligence, mastering the use of tools, the manipulation of the lesser beasts, and the strange forces left as echoes of the weapon which broke the world. They live on the rock and they have named it: they call it the Worldshard.

Chapter 1: The ring of steel on steel could already be heard as Tairiel vaulted the low stone wall around the outside of the barracks and began running over the wet grass towards the practice yard. The shortcut would muddy his boots and that would not go unnoticed by the drill master but that would have to be, if he took the time to walk the path as he was supposed to he would be late enough to warrant time doing penance but muddy boots would only earn him a few extra drills.