Leaf and Branch (New Druids Series Vol 1 & 2)

by Donald D. Allan

  Seth was elated. He had finally tracked down the Target. He sat cowering on the veranda of the house, helpless and powerless before his might. His men stood behind him to bear witness. Soon he would purge the last of the demons from the world and free the Church to stake its rightful place in the hearts of man.

  The fighting over by the other buildings did not concern him. Win or lose all that mattered was that the Target and his spawn died on the veranda. The Archbishop would be so pleased. His service to God was his sole purpose in life.

  He cocked back the crossbow string with practiced ease and placed a new bolt in the flight groove. He took a moment to admire the bolt. This was the one that would kill the Target. He would need to retrieve it afterwards and keep it close. It would be his prized possession.

  He lifted his crossbow and sighted down at the Target. The demon sat with his woman wrapped in his arms. Perhaps I could strike them both down with one bolt, he thought with a smile. The men would talk of that for decades to come.

  A flicker of light caught his attention and he turned his head to find God looking toward him a mere ten feet away. His men gasped and Seth preened that his men could now see how the Lord favoured him. Only he was worthy.

  "My Lord, you come to bear witness to the completion of my Holy task. You honour me, my Lord."

  God looked back at Seth and said nothing. Seth grew uncomfortable. Something was wrong. As he watched God transformed into the demon that had followed him down the road asking him over and over what he was. Seth started to shake with trepidation. What is happening? he thought. The demon stood in the form of a woman clothed in vines and dirt. The demon frowned at Seth and then shivered and looked about. Seth was about to cry out to banish the demon when it threw back its head and screamed long and loud into the night. The Target on the veranda and his bitch cried out in alarm and covered their ears. The dog barked and whined uncontrollably. As he watched, two black hands burst out of the middle of the demon's chest and slowly spread apart ripping the flesh in two. His men behind him screamed in terror and the living Sect members ran into the night. The newly risen remained standing bearing witness to the horror.

  Beams of light burst from the figure and as the chest separated a solid black figure started to push out of the body. The scream of the demon cut off and the black figure emerged discarding the demon skin to the ground where it melted into the earth. The black figure seemed to absorb all light. It was so black that no features could be made out. It looked male with broad shoulders. It glistened wetly in the night.

  The figure spoke with an oily, whispering voice. "I bear witness, Seth Farlow. Begin."

  Seth sat on the horse in fear. What have I just witnessed? Where is God? What is this demon in front of me?

  "You may call me Erebus."

  I wasn't sure what I was looking at. A bright light had filled the area and then Gaea had appeared and, for a moment, my heart had leapt in joy. I had thought us saved. Then she had screamed and my powers came and went from within me. Sensations of heat and cold struck me repeatedly and I felt Nadine shudder in my arms. I held my ears against the scream and watched in horror as a black figure had ripped itself out of Gaea's body. My powers recoiled from this new being. It was the exact opposite of Gaea. It represented death, pain and suffering driven with nothing more than the desire to perpetuate it. I knew all this in an instant. Now it stood staring at all of us. A smell filled the air that turned my blood to water. It was the smell of death, decay, and rancid oils: the smell of all that is wrong in the world. I wanted nothing more than to strike it down or run for as long as my heart could continue to beat.

  Nadine twisted in my arms to stare at the horror. I felt her trembling uncontrollably in my arms. Dog was barking non-stop, a sound of panic and fear in the bark. Katherine was sobbing and backing away, abandoning her parents on the steps. Franky and Anne grabbed her and pulled her aside in a futile attempt to keep her safe. Nothing was safe while this thing was here, I thought. Nothing.

  Seth Farlow sat on his horse and looked to be losing his mind. I heard a high-pitched sound escape his lips. The whites of his eyes were large and bright. The figure beckoned from Seth to me and seemed to urge him to shoot me with the crossbow.

  Everything happened at once. Seth raised and fired the crossbow. I could see that it would hit Nadine and there was nothing I could do. I started to raise my hand in a futile attempt to intercept the bolt. Dog, moving impossibly fast, leapt across us and the bolt hit the animal high in the ribs. He yelped once and fell limp and flat to the porch. The heavy thud and subsequent silence seemed to go on forever. Katherine split the air screaming "Dog!" and started to move toward him but Franky stopped her and pulled her back. Agnes cried out and I looked down to see Ben reaching up and wrapping his hands around her neck. Ben had risen from the dead.

  Dear Gaea, I prayed. Help us!

  I can't, she replied in my head, startling me. I hadn't expected an answer. I am powerless against him. He blocks me.

  Blocks you? How? What is he?

  He calls himself Erebus. You cannot fight him. You cannot win. I can only sense an absence where he stands. I am blind to him. Like the creature Seth and his minions. They are no longer part of the life of this earth. No longer part of me, voiced Gaea with a sadness in her voice.

  What am I to do? How do I stop him?

  You were never meant to. Help is on the way. Be ready.

  I heard Seth scream in rage and looked up to see his eyes wide and wild. I looked up to see he was off his horse and loping toward me. A dagger was gripped in his hand and spittle flew from his mouth. In his other hand, he clutched something that emitted a bright red light that burst through his fingers and turned his hand the colour of blood. He was screaming as he ran toward me. Behind him, his men without auras remained standing where they stood, looking impassively on. The black figure remained immobile.

  I heard a sharp, wet crack sound and looked to Agnes to see her head lying at an odd angle. Ben had killed her. A sound that stole my courage erupted from Katherine and across our bond I sensed something within her mind snap. I watched helpless as Ben pushed his wife off him. Her body slumped down the stairs and lay still, her face pressed into the dirt, all who she was discarded and gone. Ben calmly reached up to the support post of the veranda to pull himself up. An arrow appeared out of nowhere to drive through Ben's hand and pin it to the support post. Ben continued to try to stand, ignoring the arrow. I turned my head to see Seth almost on Nadine and I. Three more steps and he would reach the stairs. I remembered how my mother had hidden me and I called the power up around me and rolled Nadine and I two feet to the left.

  Seth screamed in frustration and slowed, he searched for me and the red light pulsed. I felt my power stutter and Seth locked eyes on me and a look of triumph filled his face, distorting it with bared teeth. Seth moved toward me with his dagger glinting. In a blur, a figure stepped forward from my left and intercepted Seth with the point of a long sword held in two hands. He was a stranger dressed in armour and with an impossibly bright light bursting from his forehead and from a wooden medallion hanging around his neck. Seth's momentum carried the sword through his chest until the hilt rammed home against his ribs. An expression of shock flitted across his face and he looked down at the sword impaling him. He looked to the face of the stranger in confusion. The light bathed Seth's face in pure light and then pushed through his head and burst out the other side. A look of understanding crossed his features for a moment and then he died. A high-pitched sound I hadn't heard until it stopped cut off and an eerie silence filled the air.

  The last breath of Seth Farlow escaped from his slack lips and he slid off the sword to the ground. The still figures of the men standing behind him collapsed as one to the ground. The horse followed right after and collapsed with a wet sucking sound into decomposed pile of meat and bones. Ben slumped to the ground and stilled. The stranger nodded once to me and I blinked against the blinding light. He turned to Erebus and
took a step forward.

  "Begone, creature of chaos. You hold no sway over these people. Begone!" He held forth the medallion and I could see the symbol of the Tree burning brightly on the reverse. A white light pulsed from the medallion and the man's forehead and they pierced the creature dead centre. It howled a deep low note that rattled my teeth, and it disappeared with the white light.

  We stood immobile. The only sounds were now coming from Katherine who sobbed and tried to hold Dog, her mother, and father in her arms. Nadine sat heavily beside me, her strength gone. I watched in disbelief as Reeve Comlin walked out of the darkness to stand looking down at the remains of the dead horse. He looked up at me and forced a grim smile. Another man joined him, dressed in similar leathers, and I saw the surviving farmhands following behind him.

  The stranger turned and smiled at me. The bright symbol on his forehead gone without a mark. "Well met, Will Arbor. I'm Brent Bairstow."

  Forty-Five

  Rigby Farm, 900 A.C.

  WHAT FOLLOWED WAS confusion. At some point, I had grabbed onto the Reeve and not let go until Nadine pulled us apart. I introduced her to the Reeve and, when he realised who we were to one another, he grinned a huge smile and hugged her long and hard. After that we were introduced to one another and I shook hands with the former General of the Lord Protector's Guard, Brent Bairstow, and thanked him for my life. He introduced us to Captain James Dixon and we then cleaned up the mess. Reeve Comlin freed Ben's pinned hand and then held him in his arms and cried a little, which surprised me. The surviving farmhands stood standing in disarray, holding bloodied swords and not sure what to do next.

  Franky murmured something to Anne and together they carried Katherine inside the house and upstairs to her bed. Nadine and I took only a moment to heal Dog. We removed the bolt from his side and together we healed the brave animal. He licked our faces and then bounded into the house to be with Katherine. Reeve Comlin, now up and about, barked orders and the hurt farmhands came forward to Nadine and I and we healed them. They were awed by the act and some looked frightened. Brent watched it all, holding the medallion, and, I think, he prayed. Daukyns had told me religious men prayed and I expected that was what I saw him do. I'm not sure I believed prayer would help. I knew my powers certainly did.

  What seemed like hours later, Nadine and I tended to Katherine in her bed. Dog lay beside her on the bed with his head on her lap. Katherine pulled Dog into her face and cried. Dog whined and pressed closer to her. We combined our powers and tried to provide some healing to the poor girl. She had watched her father die in front of her and then watched the corpse of her father murder her mother. It had been too much for her. Her powers had made her feel those deaths and she had lost her grip on her sanity. We tried to heal her mind but it was beyond our ability and the best we could do was provide her with a sense of peace. We could heal the body but not the mind. A peace now warred within her thoughts and memories. Nadine and I felt nothing but grief and guilt. We left her sleeping with Dog and returned to the kitchen.

  Once there I was stunned to find Dempster cooking and arguing with Franky and Anne about who was doing what and how to do it. I ran to him and hugged him hard and introduced him to Nadine, my wife. He was overjoyed for me and held me tight. He told me he had travelled with Reeve Comlin and the others.

  "It's good to see you, Dempster. I missed you."

  "You too, Will"

  "I'm sorry I left without telling you where I was really going."

  "Nothing to forgive, Will," he said. "I'm no stranger to running. Come now, sit, and eat."

  Dempster pushed Nadine and I to the table and told us to sit. I sat as close as I could to Nadine and drank the tea Dempster had steeped. Shortly after, Reeve Comlin, Brent Bairstow, and James Dixon joined us. I looked up to the Reeve and smiled. His presence gave me strength. They sat at the table and we looked at one another in silence. There was too much to talk about and no one knew where to start.

  It was Reeve Comlin that spoke first. "Will, it's been awhile. Here you are. Safe and sound." His lips twisted in an ironic smile.

  I looked at him in surprise and said nothing for a time. "I didn't expect to see you here, Reeve Comlin. You saved our lives. You, and Brent, and James."

  "Will, it's just Comlin now. I'm no longer a Reeve," I sensed the pain behind his words. "We should have been here sooner. We ran into difficulties on the river." The men looked at each other. "But we made it. I only wish we could have saved Agnes and Ben. That will haunt me."

  Nadine stirred. "Your daughter is upstairs. You should look in on her."

  Comlin looked away. "She was Ben's daughter. Not mine."

  "She has no one now, Steve Comlin. She only has you, her true father."

  Comlin looked angry over at Nadine, he was with no doubt seeing her as a young woman and resentful of her words. Brent, beside him, laid a hand on Comlin's shoulder and squeezed. Comlin glanced quickly at Brent but then leaned forward toward Nadine. "Yes, I am her true father. But I didn't raise her. I am no one to her. Katherine's a grown woman now. She doesn't need a stranger pretending to be someone he isn't and never was."

  "She is damaged," grated Nadine and tapped her own head. "Up here. She will need someone to watch over her and support her."

  Reeve stood up, his face red. "Who are you, some young girl, to tell me what my responsibilities are?"

  "Steve, easy," admonished Brent.

  "I will not be easy! It is not my fault Agnes and Ben have died!"

  "No one said it was," said Brent.

  "Stop it!" shouted Nadine. "You are acting like a child, Steve Comlin. Sit down and shut up." The tone of her voice brooked no argument and Comlin slowly sat back down. "I am almost sixty years old. You see a young woman and don't heed my words. You are her father. You have a responsibility to her. You have a responsibility to her dead parents — your friends! Now shut up and think on that!"

  I reached out and rubbed Nadine's back. She was right, I just wish she could be nicer about it. Dempster came around the table and set down a tray of sandwiches. I looked up at him and smiled.

  "I missed your cooking, Dempster," I said and meant it. "How'd you end up with them? The Reeve, James and Brent?"

  Dempster turned red in the face and looked to James for support. James laughed and it sounded strained. James rose and patted Dempster on the back.

  "This fine chef, who I might add gave us the most memorable meals on the barge, took one look at General Brent Bairstow, recognised the uniform of the Lord Protector's guard, and ran."

  Dempster pulled a handkerchief from a pocket and wiped his brow. "Yes, well, it put such a fright into me. I was certain he had come for me."

  Brent chuckled. "Yes. The Lord Protector so hated the chef that tried to poison him that he sent his General of the Lord Protector's Guard all the way to Jaipers to arrest him."

  I looked from Dempster to Brent to see if that was a jest. Dempster looked embarrassed and I knew it was true. Dempster had tried to kill the Lord Protector?

  "It hadn't seemed so improbable when I saw you sitting in the Inn."

  "What delayed you?" I asked. "You said you were delayed en route?"

  Brent and James looked at each other and shook their heads. "That will need to stay a secret, I'm afraid."

  Reeve Comlin interrupted with a laugh. "No secret there. They got us lost."

  In unison, they turned to the Reeve and spoke. "Did not!"

  "Yes, you did."

  "If you had not managed to get hurt we would have been fine."

  "I wouldn't have gotten hurt if you hadn't..."

  "Children!" barked Nadine and everyone turned to stare at her. "It's been a long night. The sun will rise soon. We need rest. Today will be a difficult day. We have many loved ones to bury. I'm going to bed. You should too."

  I looked at Brent. He looked more than a little familiar to me. He nodded to me as if reading my mind.

  When none of us moved, Nadine sighed and leaned in and gave m
e a quick kiss. "Goodnight, young man."

  "Goodnight, old woman. I won't be long."

  Nadine bid the others good night and she left the kitchen for our bed. Franky, Anne and Dempster said their farewells right after and disappeared into the house and their beds.

  Reeve Comlin, James, Brent and I sat around the table and looked at one another.

  "Is she really sixty?" Comlin asked me.

  I nodded. "Actually more like sixty-seven. Gaea made her young again."

  Comlin looked doubtful.

  "Trust me," I said. "She's older than she looks."

  Suddenly Brent snapped his fingers. "Jergen!" he said and looked at me. "You were in the central park with that dog. I saw you there."

  My eyes widened in recognition. "Yes, I remember! I saw you ride in."

  Brent nodded his head in agreement. "Small world," he said.

  We all smiled at one another and grew quiet. "The farmhands, what's left of them, they're taking care of the bodies?" I asked the question quietly to Comlin. They had embraced him. Consoling themselves in the loss of their friends and leaders by seeing their former leader appear from thin air. I watched as Comlin took charge and ordered them to tasks. That seemed to give them purpose and they acted quickly. The stable was allowed to burn to the ground but in a controlled fashion. Small fires nearby were kept down and the surviving horses were rounded up. Graves were being dug and later today we would bury our friends. Seth and his ilk had been thrown into a mass grave.

  "Yes, my crew will take care of that. It gives them focus." Comlin looked at his hands and then up to me. "Tell me, what happened to you once you left Jaipers?"

  I sucked in a breath and then told the tale. All three men remained silent. When it was done Comlin looked to Brent. "I told you. He's a druid. A powerful one and now married to another. There is power here. You saw them heal my crew. The world is changing. Look what just happened outside."

  "Hmm. I see the work of God. No offense, Will," said Brent and looked to me. I inclined my head to show I didn't take any. "I saw evil astride a dead horse and we struck them down with Faith. Then the black demon was smote down. God empowered me."