by Thomas Green
A soft step glided on the stone behind her. Luna glanced over her shoulder to see a woman standing by the other side of the watchtower’s roof. Her crimson hair shimmered in the ruby light of the dusk while her emerald eyes shone with an inner light.
Pitch-black leathers wrapped her slender body while a cloak weaved around her. She awkwardly motioned with her hand. “Hi.”
Luna raised an eyebrow. “Hi?”
The girl’s eyes widened. “What?”
Luna had no idea what this was about. “I’m sorry, but do we know each other?”
They stared at each other for a long moment. The girl’s expression twisted with pain while tears glistened in her eyes. She turned her head, looked to the ground, and disappeared.
Who was that? Luna shrugged and returned to her dinner. A full minute later, a thought crept into her mind. That was Miranda, wasn’t it? She grabbed her face into her palms, dropping her meal. I’m sorry.
As the time to sleep came, she wandered through the town, searching for the crimson-haired girl, for the lover she didn’t remember, for Miranda. She didn’t find her, but she caught Lucas’ scent. She followed its trail to see where he slept. He lay in a bed in a small house in the center of the town while Zoey sat on a nearby chair, sharpening her pole-axe.
Luna’s heart sunk. She swallowed her shame, burrowed the desire to tear Zoey to shreds and returned to the company’s sleeping quarters, breaking a dozen flowerpots along the way. Before she went to sleep, she gagged her mouth with a cloth and told Willem to tie her arms and legs so she wouldn’t flail. She knew the nightmares would come, but she couldn’t face Lucas. Not since she realized neither he nor Miranda knew about her losing a part of her memories. She should have told him, but she was too busy being miserable to think ahead. She earned herself tonight’s nightmare.
***
The nightmare was every bit as horrible as the previous ones, but the shame she felt each time she thought of Lucas was stronger than the fear of the sleepless night. As she gazed upon her fellow soldiers, preparing for the battle, she realized she couldn’t do it. They trusted her, and she failed them. Now, they were ready to trust her again. But she couldn’t pretend nothing happened, to keep going as if everything was fine. Guilt wreathed her entire being, paralyzing her. She wasn’t good enough so they would have been better off without her. With a random excuse, she slipped from the unit and dove into the city.
Within the central circle, the one furthest away from the fighting, she found the least remarkable alley. She hid by its side and exploded into tears, her body trembling with every sob. She was worthless.
Luna didn’t know how long had passed, but at some point, she realized Lucas towered above her. She turned her eyes to meet his gaze. His expression was compassionate. She shook her head, stuttering. “Leave me here… I’m useless. Everyone’s better off if I’m not there.”
He closed his eyes and sighed. “Whatever. I need you to do something for me.”
“You have thousands of men here, all of whom can do it better.”
“None of them can forge me a sword.”
Luna sighed. “Neither can I.”
“You worked in Jean Pierre’s smithy, so you should have the general idea how to do that.”
“The most I ever crafted was a dagger.”
Lucas smiled. “That’s more than everyone else within these walls had ever forged.” He grabbed her by her shoulder and raised her to her feet. “Come on.”
She had no strength left to resist him. He led her to an empty smithy where he swept the tables clean. Luna looked around, not sure what to say, think or do. She couldn’t refuse him. The tone of his voice, the calm trust he placed in her made her not want to reject him. But she barely knew the theory of how to craft a sword.
“All right. You will need this.” He waved his hand, and a collection of tools for smithing appeared on the ground. She stared at the items. Even at first glance, they were exquisite. Their polished metal glistened in the light, embellished by gems and rare metals. “I need you to make me a longsword, using all of this.” He flicked his wrist, and a slab of steel appeared before her.
She touched it, cold and heavy. “What alloy is this?”
“Starsteel. It’s the metal from which the gods of old used to craft their weapons.” His eyes lost focus. “And yes, these tools once belonged to Ghorguna, the Goddess of Creation and Destruction, the Heaven’s Smith.”
Luna stared at him, wide-eyed. To her horror, he was serious. She wished she knew how to tell him she couldn’t do it.
He didn’t seem bothered. “I need a longsword. Use the full slab, don’t bother with making it pretty, put on a simple symbol of a cross on the cross guard. Like this one.” A rosary with the pendant of a cross, a hundred of white beads split apart by six colored ones, each of them different, gold, black, violet, gray, green and red, appeared in his hand.
She stared at the cross. “What does it mean?”
Nostalgia flashed through his eyes. “God. The one I once served.”
“How was he?”
He shook his head. “I never believed in a man, but in a principle. I abandoned it, thousands of years ago, but… the deities that call themselves gods are so unworthy of that title I remembered why my faith lied elsewhere.”
She scanned him. She had never seen him like this. So unsure, grasping for something out of his reach. “You don’t remember, do you?”
“No. The archangels, the old gods, had ways to maintain their memories, so they kept them forever and passed them onto their children. But… I am a human, and it’s difficult to remember things from over seven thousand years ago.”
Luna gaped at the fallen god standing before her. “Can’t you ask someone?”
“Don’t have whom. The faith was unique to my world, which was destroyed seven thousand years ago. There is no survivor other than me.” He sighed. “Anyway, you will also need this.” He walked to the forge and dropped in a red crystal. A second later, an intense heat burst through the room. “You should be undisturbed in here. I will visit once a day to see if you need something.”
She shrugged, grabbed the slab of Starsteel and tossed it into the forge. He smiled and left. Luna shook her head and searched the smithy for some notes on how to make a sword because she barely remembered the basics. She didn’t know why he treated her like this, but she swore not to waste his trust. She failed everyone else, so she dared not to fail him.
30
Raven
As Raven gazed upon the endless ranks of soldiers laced with demons, he wondered if his journey has reached its end. He stood upon the battlements with soldiers from the 1st Legion to which he was assigned by Lucas. The sound of war horns started the festival of death. Yet the armies of the demon prince, of Kayleanne and Ebilezerhar, did not storm the walls in full force. Instead, they sent smaller units with ladders and hooks, who were chipping away at the defense. Out of all the battles Raven ever fought, this one was far the most tedious. The theme was clearly attrition as the demon princes commanded more than enough soldiers to keep attacking around the clock to exhaust the defenders before making a major move. The sole purpose of these attacks was to force them to stay on the walls fighting without being able to sleep and thus deplete their stamina.
As a partial counter to this strategy, the man leading the defenses, the commander of the 1st Legion, Li Mu, designed a schedule by which each individual company was to live. And so he passed his shift and went to sleep before his next shift was to begin. On the way to his room, he passed a smithy with flames shining through a window. He peeked in. By the wall lay Luna, gagged, with her arms and legs bound together, shaking in a nightmare. In spite of all his aether could do, there was nothing in his arsenal that would help her. He hated how powerless it made him feel.
***
The morning of three days later, Raven sat in the mess hall, staring into an empty mug he had for breakfast, wondering how the siege would have been if they didn’t ha
ve a brewery. The three days and three nights of constant battle had taken their toll on every aspect of his being. His ears rang, his head hurt, his stomach had filed its resignation, and his throat was sore from retching.
He looked around the hall, and the feeling of commiseration eased his suffering, for everyone looked like they had had enough of this siege two days ago. Everyone except for Lucas, who was leaning onto the wall and gazing out through the window.
Raven rose and approached him. “You look calm.”
He shrugged. “There’s not much I can do.”
“For how long do we need to hold the town?”
“By the best estimates I have, they had ten days’ worth of food supplies. We are entering day four, so at least a week longer.”
“How do you see our chances of succeeding?”
He smiled. “Depends on what they have up their sleeves. If they keep going like this, we can hold the town for a month.”
Raven’s eyes widened. “A month?”
“Humans can handle a lot more than they are willing to admit when it comes to their own survival.”
He narrowed his eyes. “When do you think they will make a first bigger move?”
“I don’t know. I would guess today, but I don’t want to base the plan around guesses.”
“There’s something you aren’t telling me.”
Lucas smiled. “Come with me.” He led him to the second circle of walls from which they had a good view on the battlefield and pointed with a finger. “Look over there.”
Raven focused on the mass of soldiers, noticing them moving bodies back into the valley. “What am I supposed to be seeing?”
“They remove every fallen or wounded soldier from the walls and move them backward. If my hunch is correct, that’s where they have healers who put together everyone injured, so they haven’t had nearly as many losses as we would like them to.”
“What about our losses?”
“Our healers don’t get enough rest to refill their aether reserves, so we are down to bandages. Li Mu has been mixing the shifts, so it isn’t apparent, but from the four thousand locals who help us defend the city, over a quarter is already incapable of combat.”
Raven frowned. “So much for holding out a month.”
Lucas laughed. “I had to lie about that in front of the soldiers, but truth be told, we will soon have to abandon the outer wall for the pure lack of soldiers. The inner circle will be easier to hold manpower wise, but retreating never helps morale plus the inner wall is much thinner than the outer one so they might be able to penetrate it with a suitable aether manifestation.”
“Anything I can do to help?”
“No.”
Raven’s vision shifted. He saw himself standing atop a different wall with a fortress made of steel and glass surrounding him while an endless horde of demons poured inside the fortress through the broken gate. Yet it wasn’t Lucas who stood next to him, but a blonde woman in blue robes, one that looked so much like Kayleanne it took his breath away. He heard himself ask, ‘Anything I can do to help?’
She smiled while her sapphire eyes met his. ‘No.’
His vision turned to normal, standing on the walls of Snowhaven next to Lucas. He shook his head to clear it. “Will go do my shift.”
“Have fun.” Lucas disappeared, soulstepping out of sight.
The hours of fighting upon the battlements numbed down Raven’s senses to their bare minimum. Yet he felt a tremor. His heart sped up, pumping life into his mind. He gazed around, the wall beneath him trembling.
Raven left his post in search of Lieutenant Akku. “Send whoever you can to the three squares between the first and second circle of walls!”
The lieutenant yawned and nodded.
Raven descended onto the empty streets, walked to the largest square in the outer ring and scaled to the roof of the tallest house.
Minutes later, a massive tremor shook his world. The center of the square burst open and a ginormous snake’s head shot out into the air.
Raven drew his sword and leapt off the roof, strengthening his body and blade with his aether. The snake coiled to lunge with its open mouth. Raven pushed his strength into the snake, overriding its will to force its jaws shut. As they did, he stabbed his sword beneath the creature’s mouth, slicing the neck.
His weight pulled him down, letting him cut the snake all the way to the ground. Thick blood washed over him like a wave as the snake weaved in its last spasm.
Raven wiped the blood off his face. When the snake’s body fell, smaller snake demons started flooding out of the corpse. Raven greeted the first one with his shield, splattering its skull. Soldiers rushed to the square, helping him with the snakes.
From the corner of his eye, he noticed fighting by the gate. He bolted in the direction but froze as he got closer. Luna fought by the gate, wielding a spear, killing the Palai soldiers defending the opening mechanism. He stood petrified, unsure what was going on and what he should do. The moment of hesitation allowed Luna to kill the last two soldiers and smash the mechanism holding the gate closed. Its wings flung open, and Kayleanne’s soldiers rushed into the city with the demon princess at their midst. Luna contorted, her whole being shimmering in aether and turned into a handsome man in black and green robes. Ebilezerhar.
The horn for retreat echoed through the town, and the defending soldiers started retreating to the second circle of walls. Raven stood frozen in place, trying to piece together what happened.
While her soldiers dashed by his sides, ignoring Raven, Kayleanne walked toward him, speaking in a conversational tone. “You seem to be troubled, prince.”
His vision shifted. He saw himself standing by a maps-covered table within a room. As the door opened, the woman who looked like Kayleanne entered with a charming smile, saying ‘You seem to be troubled, dear.’
He blinked and returned to reality.
Kayleanne stood five feet in front of him with her sapphire sword in her hand. “Spacing out, again?”
“Wait.” Raven sheathed his sword. “I need to ask you something.”
She shrugged. “You’ve got my attention.”
“Who were you?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Now I’m really curious about what type of answer you expect to that question?”
His heart raced, forcing him to focus to keep his voice steady. “I have visions where I see someone like you, someone so much like you it cannot be a coincidence. I think what I see are memories of past I somehow, somewhat, inherited.”
Kayleanne’s eyes bulged out, and she exploded into laughter, one so strong she had to rest her hand on her thigh not to fall. She gaped at Raven when she calmed down enough to speak. “He didn’t tell you what you were?”
Raven stared at her, frozen. “Who should have told me what?”
“All right, sure, okay…” Kayleanne struggled to speak between outbursts of laughter. “I will let you live, for now, so you can go ask Lucas about Tsal Sanui. And then we meet at the eastern watchtower of the inner ring by the dusk.”
Raven shook his head and dashed away to rejoin the retreating Palai soldiers, making it with them to the inner circle of the city. Since Lucas’ shifts alternated with his, Raven waited for him by his post.
***
Lucas appeared early, this time without Zoey nipping at his heels. He walked straight to Raven. “You look like you have something on your heart.”
Raven motioned him to go to a side alley not to be heard. “What is Tsal Sanui?”
“Not what, but who.” Lucas pulled a cigar from out of his pocket and lit it by the steel contraption Raven had yet to understand. “Tsal Sanui is in ancient celestial and means Children of the Sun. That is how the angels of old used to refer to themselves.”
Raven stared at him, mouth wide open. “Who?”
“From the millions of Tsal Sanui that had existed over time, you have at least heard of the archangels since they are worshipped as Gods. Palai, the God of War, Aln
il, the God of Life, Venea, The Goddess of Pestilence, and Ghorguna, the Goddess of Destruction are the ones you had probably heard about.”
Raven narrowed his eyes. “What does that have to do with Kayleanne and me?”
“Not much.” Lucas formed a painful smile. “But not nothing. The reason you don’t remember your parents is because you didn’t have any, for that is how Tsal Sanui are born, energy that at some point takes the form similar to that of a human.”
“So… I’m a descendant of a God?”
Lucas shook his head. “Not really. Each of the nine archangels represented one spiritual line of Tsal Sanui, and there is no way to tell how close or distant you are to the archangel himself. Or which one.”
Raven pulled the amulet with a symbol of Alnil from beneath his armor. “Got a hunch about the spiritual line.”
“That doesn’t mean anything. Tsal Sanui cannot have children the way humans do, so the descendants are really more of energy taken shape rather than something connected. The fragments of memories you see could be of any combination of your ancestors from any spiritual line, which counts thousands of souls.”
His heart sunk. “That’s… depressing.”
Lucas released joyless laughter that made Raven’s skin crawl. “So thought some of the archangels, committing unspeakable crimes on their hopeless path to obtain what they could never have.”
“Then… why is Kayleanne a demon princess and I am not?”
“Thousands of years ago, the heavens fell prey to the Red God, turning them to hell, corrupting the Tsal Sanui. She is touched by the corruption, an eternal slave to the Red God while you are not.”
Raven exhaled. “That’s a lot to take in.”
“I know.” Lucas smiled. “Just remember your fate is yours to choose.”
Raven raised an eyebrow. “Why did you tell me this line?”
“Because you needed to hear it from me.” Lucas turned and soulstepped away.
