Descent of Angels

by Mitchel Scanlon

  One guard had called Nemiel a pus-brained simpleton for even thinking he was worthy to join the Order. Another had tried to tempt Zahariel by offering a blanket and a hot meal, but only if he would first give up on his ambitions and leave the test.

  Once again, Zahariel could see the guard’s face leering down at him as he said, ‘Come inside, boy. There’s no reason for you to be standing out here, freezing. It’s not as if you’d ever make it into the Order. Everybody knows you haven’t got what it takes. You know it, too. I can see right through you. Come inside. You don’t want to be outside once night comes. Raptors, bears and lions, there’re a lot of different predators come around the walls of the fortress at night. And there’s nothing they like more than to see a boy standing in open ground. You’d make a tasty morsel for the likes of them.’

  So far, the nightmare had followed a familiar course, treading the paths of memory, but at some point, never the same one twice, it would deviate into madness and things of which he had no memory, things he wished he could erase from his mind as easily as his pleasant dreams were wont to vanish.

  In this variation, Zahariel stood beside a fair-haired boy he had never seen before, in his nightmares or in reality. The boy was a youth of wondrous perfection and pride, who stood with ramrod straight shoulders and the bearing of someone who would grow into the mightiest of warriors.

  A guard with a gnarled face and cruel orange eyes leant down towards the boy.

  ‘You don’t need to finish the test,’ said the guard. ‘Your pride and fortitude under pressure has attracted the attention of the Order’s Grand Master. Your fate has already been decided. Any fool with eyes can see you’ve got what it takes to be the chosen one.’

  Zahariel wanted to cry out, to tell the boy not to believe the falsehoods he was hearing, but it was what the boy wanted to hear. It promised him everything he had ever desired.

  The boy’s face lit up at the news of his acceptance, his eyes shining with the promise of achieving all that he had ever wanted.

  Thinking the test was over, the boy sank, exhausted, to his knees and leaned forward to kiss the snow covered ground.

  The cruel laughter of the guards brought the boy’s head up with a start, and Zahariel could see the dawning comprehension of his foolishness slide across his face like a slick.

  ‘Foolish boy!’ cried the guard. ‘You think because someone tells you that you are special that it must be true? You are nothing but a pawn for our amusement!’

  The boy let out a heart-rending howl of anguish, and Zahariel fought to keep his eyes fixed straight ahead as the boy was dragged to the edge of the forest, red-eyed and crying, his face pale with shock and disbelief.

  The boy’s cries were muffled as he was hurled into the dark forest, the tangled webs of roots and creepers dragging him deeper and deeper into the choking vegetation. Though the boy’s pained cries grew weaker and weaker, Zahariel could still hear them, echoing in unimaginable anguish long after he had been taken by the darkness.

  Zahariel tried to shut out the boy’s pain as the weather grew colder and the number of aspirants standing outside Aldurukh dwindled as other boys decided it was better to bear the stigma of failure than to face the ordeal for a moment longer.

  Some went pleading to the guards, begging for shelter within the fortress and the return of their coats and boots. Others simply collapsed, worn down by cold and hunger, to be carried away to fates unknown.

  By sunset, only two-thirds of the boys remained. Then, as darkness fell, the guards retreated to their sentry points inside the fortress, leaving the boys to endure the long hours of the night alone.

  The night was the worst time. Zahariel twisted as his dream-self shivered in the dismal darkness, his teeth chattering so violently he thought they might shatter. The silence was absolute, the boy’s cries from the forest stilled and the guards jibes and taunts ended.

  With the coming of night, the silence and the power of imagination did a better job of terrorising the boys than the guards ever could. The seeds of fear had been sown with talk of predators prowling around outside the fortress, and in the still of the night, those seeds took root and sprouted in each boy’s mind.

  The night had a quality that was eternal, thought Zahariel.

  It had always existed and always would exist. The feeble efforts of men to bring illumination to the galaxy were futile and doomed to failure. He dimly perceived the strangeness of the concept as it formed in his mind, expressing ideas and words that he had no knowledge of, but which he knew were crushingly true.

  Afterwards, it was the sounds that Zahariel feared the most.

  The ordinary sounds of the forest at night, noises that he had heard more than a thousand times in the past, were louder and more threatening than any sounds he had heard before. At times, he heard sounds he swore were the work of raptors, bears or even the much-feared Calibanite lion.

  The crack of every twig, every rustle of the leaves, every call and scream of the night: all these things sounded heavy with menace. Death lurked just behind him or at his elbow, and he wanted to run, to give up the ordeal. He wanted to go back to the settlement where he was born, to his friends and family, to his mother’s soothing words, to the warm place by the hearth. He wanted to give up on the Order. He wanted to forgo his knightly pretensions.

  He was seven years of age and he wanted to go home.

  As horrible and unearthly as the noises had been, it was the voices that were the worst part of the ordeal, the most loathsome invention of his nightmare.

  Between the roars and the snap of branches, a million susurrations emerged from the forest like a cabal of whispering voices. Whether anyone else could hear them, Zahariel did not know, for no one else reacted to the sounds that invaded his skull with promises of power, of flesh, of immortality.

  All could be his, if he would step from the snow-covered esplanade before the fortress and walk into the forest. Without the presence of the guards, Zahariel felt able to turn his head and look towards the tangled, vine choked edge of the forest.

  Though forests carpeted much of the surface of Caliban and his entire existence had been spent within sight of tall trees and swaying green canopies, this forest was unlike anything he had seen before. The trunks of the trees were leprous and green, their bark rotten and diseased. Darkness that was blacker than the deepest night lurked between them, and though the voices promised him that all would be well if he stepped into the forest, he knew that terrors undreamt of and nightmares beyond reckoning dwelt beneath its haunted arbours.

  As ridiculous as it seemed to Zahariel, he knew that this dream-shaped forest was no natural phenomenon, a region so unnatural that it existed beyond the mortal world, shaped by its dreams and nightmares, stirred by its desires and fears.

  What lurked within its depths was beyond fear and reason, madness and elemental power that seethed and roared in concert with the heaving tides of men and their dreadful lives.

  And yet…

  For all its dark, twisting, horrid power, there was an undeniable attraction.

  Power, no matter its source, could always be mastered, couldn’t it? Elemental energies could be harnessed and made to serve the will of one with the strength of purpose to master its complexities.

  The things that could be achieved with such power were limitless. The great beasts could be hunted to extinction and the other knightly brotherhoods brought to heel. All of Caliban would become the domain of the Order, and all would obey its masters or die by the swords of its terrible black angels of death.

  The thought made him smile as he thought of the glories to be won on the fields of battle. He pictured the slaughter and the debaucheries that would follow, the carrion birds and worms feasting, and the capering madmen that made merry in the ruin of a world.

  Zahariel cried out, the vision faded from his mind and he heard the voices for what they were: the whisper in the gloom, the hinting tone, the haunting laugh and the jealous vipers that cracked
the panels of tombs and composed the platitudes of his epitaph.

  Even unmasked, the tempters of the dark realm of the wood would not leave him, and their blandishments continued to plague him throughout the night, until his feet were ready to carry him to willing damnation in the darkness.

  In the end, as it always was, it was Nemiel that stopped him, not through any word or deed, but purely because he was there.

  Nemiel stood at his shoulder throughout the nightmare, as he had on that cold, fearful night. Unbending and unbroken, his best friend stood by his side, never wavering and never afraid.

  Taking heart from his cousin’s example, Zahariel found new strength fill him and knew that, but for the strength of his brotherhood with Nemiel, he would have faltered in his inner struggle. With the strength he drew from his presence, he refused to bow down to his fears. He refused to give in.

  He had seen out the night with Nemiel beside him.

  As the relentless logic of the nightmare gave way to memory, the sun rose over the treetops of the forest, and the dark whisperers withdrew. Only a dozen boys remained standing before the gates of Aldurukh, and Zahariel relaxed in his bed as the familiar pattern of reality reasserted itself.

  Many of the other hopefuls had failed the test during the night and had gone to the gates to beg the guards to let them in. Whether any had heard the same voices as he had and ventured into the forest, he never knew, and as the first rays of sunlight reached their freezing bodies, Zahariel saw a gruff, solidly built figure emerge from the fortress and march towards them.

  The figure had worn a hooded white surplice over burnished black armour, and carried a gnarled wooden staff at his side.

  ‘I am Master Ramiel,’ the figure had said, standing before the aspirants. He had pulled back the hood of his surplice, revealing the weathered face of a man well into his middle fifties. ‘It is my honour to be one of the Order’s masters of instruction.’

  He raised the staff and swung it in a wide arc, indicating the dozen shivering boys before him.

  ‘You will be my students. You have passed the test set for you, and that is good. But you should know it was more than just a test. It was also your first lesson. In a minute, we will go inside Aldurukh, where you will be given a hot meal and warm, dry clothes. Before we do, I want you to consider something for a moment. You have stood in the snow outside the fortress for more than twenty hours. You have endured cold, hunger and hardship, not to mention other privations. Yet, you are still here. You passed the test and you endured these things where others failed. The question I would ask you is simple. Why? There were almost two hundred boys here. Why did you twelve pass this test and not the others?’

  Master Ramiel had looked from one boy to another, waiting to see if any of them would answer the question. At length, once he had seen that none of the boys would, he had answered it for them.

  ‘It is because your minds were stronger,’ Master Ramiel had told them. ‘A man can be trained in the skills of killing, he can learn to use a knife or other weapons, but these things are nothing if his mind is not strong. It takes strength of mind for a man to hunt the great beasts. It takes strength for a man to know cold and hunger, to feel fear and yet refuse to break in the face of it. Always remember, the mind and will of a knight are as much weapons in his armoury as his sword and pistol. I will teach you how to develop these things, but it is up to you whether these lessons take root. Ultimately, the question of whether you will succeed or fail will be decided in the recesses of your own hearts. It takes mental strength and great fortitude of mind and will to become a knight. There, you have heard your first lesson,’ Master Ramiel had said grimly, his eyes sweeping sternly over his new charges as though he was capable of seeing into their very souls. ‘Now, go and eat.’

  The command given, Zahariel’s mind floated up from the depths of his subconscious towards waking as he heard a distant bell ringing and felt rough hands shaking him awake.

  His eyes flickered open, gummed by sleep, his vision blurred.

  A face swam into focus above him and it took a moment for him to recognise his cousin from the callow youth he had stood next to in his dream.

  ‘Nemiel?’ he said with a sleep drowsy voice.

  ‘Who else would it be?’

  ‘What are you doing? What time is it?’

  ‘It’s early,’ said Nemiel. ‘Get up, quickly now!’

  ‘Why?’ protested Zahariel. ‘What’s going on?’

  Nemiel sighed and Zahariel looked around their austere barracks as supplicants dressed hurriedly, with grins of excitement and not a little fear upon their faces.

  ‘What’s going on?’ parroted Nemiel. ‘We’re going on a hunt is what’s going on!’

  ‘A hunt?’

  ‘Aye!’ cried Nemiel. ‘Brother Amadis is leading our phratry on a hunt!’

  ZAHARIEL FELT THE familiar mix of excitement and fear as he rode the black steed between the trees in the shadowy depths of the forest. He shivered as fragments of his dream returned to him, and he strained to hear any hint of the screaming or whispering that had dogged his latest episode of dreaming.

  There was nothing, but then the excited jabbering of his comrades would have blotted out all but the most strident calls from the forest. Zahariel rode alongside Nemiel, his cousin’s open face and dark hair partially concealed by his helmet, but his excitement infectious.

  Zahariel had been selected to lead this group, and nine supplicants rode behind him, each one also mounted on one of the black horses of Caliban. The root strands of any other colour of riding beast had long since died out, and only horses of a dark hue could be bred by the Order’s horse masters.

  Like their riders, each horse was young and had much to learn, on their way to becoming the famed mounts of the Ravenwing cavalry. The knights of the Ravenwing rode like daring heroes of old, leading exponents of lightning warfare and hit and run charges, they were masters of the wilderness.

  They could survive for months alone in the deadly forests of Caliban, heroic figures in matt black armour and winged helms that concealed the identity of each warrior.

  To be one of the Ravenwing was to live a lonely life, but one of heart-stopping adventure and glory.

  Five other groups of ten riders made up the hunt, spread throughout the forest in a staggered V formation, with Brother Amadis roaming between them as an observer and mentor. They were many kilometres from the Order’s fortress monastery, and the thrill of riding through the forest so far from home almost outweighed the cold lump of dread that had settled in Zahariel’s stomach.

  ‘You think we’ll actually find a beast?’ asked Attias from Zahariel’s right. ‘I mean, this part of the forest is supposed to be clear isn’t it?’

  ‘We won’t find anything with you prattling on!’ snapped Nemiel. ‘I swear they can hear you back at Aldurukh.’

  Attias flinched at Nemiel’s harsh tone, and Zahariel shot his cousin a curt glance. Nemiel shrugged, unapologetic, and rode onwards.

  ‘Pay no attention to him, Attias,’ said Zahariel. ‘He’s missing his bed, that’s all.’

  Attias nodded and smiled, his natural optimism glossing over the incident with good grace. The boy was younger than Zahariel, and he had known him ever since Attias was seven and had joined the Order.

  Zahariel wasn’t sure why he had taken the younger boy under his wing, but he had helped Attias adapt to the disciplined and demanding life of a supplicant, perhaps because he had seen something of himself in the boy.

  His early years with the Order had been hard and if it hadn’t been for Zahariel’s guidance, Attias would undoubtedly have failed in his first weeks and been sent home in ignominy. As it was, the boy had persevered and become a more than creditable supplicant.

  Nemiel had never warmed to the boy and made him the frequent subject of his often cruel jibes and scornful ridicule. It had become an unspoken source of antagonism between the cousins, for Nemiel had held that each supplicant should stand or fal
l by his own merits, not by who helped him; where Zahariel contended that it was the duty of each and every supplicant to help his brothers.

  ‘It’s a great honour for Brother Amadis to lead us on this hunt, isn’t it?’

  ‘Indeed it is, Attias,’ said Zahariel. ‘It’s not often we get to learn from such a senior knight. If he speaks, you must listen to what he says.’

  ‘I will,’ promised Attias.

  Another of their group rode alongside Zahariel and pushed up the visor of his helm to speak. The helmets the supplicants wore were the hand-me-downs of the Order and only those issued to team leaders boasted an inter-suit communications system.

  Zahariel’s helmet allowed him to communicate with the leaders of the other groups of riders and Brother Amadis, but his fellow supplicants had to open their helmets to be heard.

  The rider next to him was Eliath, a friend of Nemiel and companion in his mocking games. Eliath was taller and broader than any of the other supplicants, his bulk barely able to fit within a suit of armour. Though his flesh was youthfully doughy, his strength was prodigious and his stamina enormous. Though what he possessed in power, he lacked in speed.

  Eliath and Zahariel had never seen eye to eye, the boy too often taking Nemiel’s lead when shaping his behaviour towards his fellow supplicants.

  ‘Did you bring your notebook with you, Attias?’ asked Eliath.

  ‘Yes,’ said Attias. ‘It’s in my pack, why?’

  ‘Well if we do find a beast, you’ll want to take notes on how I gut it. They might stand you in good stead if you ever face one without us.’

  A tightening of the jawline was the only outward sign of Attias’s displeasure, but Zahariel knew it was a jibe that was somewhat deserved. The younger boy would carry his notebooks with him at all times and write down every word the senior knights and supplicants said, whether appropriate or not. The footlocker at the end of Attias’s bed was filled with dozens of such notebooks crammed with his tight script, and every night before lights out he would memorise entire tracts of offhand comments and remarks as though they were passages from the Verbatim.