Ascension (War of the Seraphs): Book One

by Dan Bilodeau

  Lothar came up next to Wulf. “Shouldn’t…shouldn’t we bury the dead, m’lord?”

  Wulf gave him a measured glare. “No, these men stay unburied. They shall have company soon enough, I promise you. Have the men under your command collect the weapons that are still serviceable and prepare to move out.”

  Once this grisly task was completed, Wulf surveyed the battleground. Yes, Mulbar, you shall not be alone for long. He smiled at the thought of the field being littered with dead Druids.

  NINETEEN

  Come on Hade, Dal silently urged, you can’t die on us now. Twelve hours had passed and Hadrian’s condition had not improved. Dal stared down at the man who had brought him this far. Hadrian’s eyes were closed, and his breathing shallow and troubled. And every now and then a look of intense pain settled on his withered face. For all intents and purposes, he looked as if he was already dead.

  Dal had gone to Hadrian’s side as soon as he’d learned where he was being held, and had remained there throughout the night. The Druids had long since left the chamber, exhausted by their healing. While many of Hadrian’s wounds had been cared for and closed, some remained unattended, as they were too deep or complex to heal along with everything else wrong with him. They would have to wait until later. If there was a later.

  “Don’t leave me, Hade, I need you,” Dal said in desperation as he paced the chamber. “We all do. I don’t know what I’m doing here. Training to become a Druid? That’s a fairy tale. I’m just a farmer. You dragged me all the way up here. And for what? Just so you can leave me? That’s not going to happen! I won’t allow it! Too many people have died already!” His fists were clenched and he took a deep breath to compose himself.

  He felt a pair of arms wrap around his waist from behind. The hands were small but strong. “Take it easy,” Deidre said. “He’ll be all right. He needs his rest though, and I doubt he needs you screaming at him right now.”

  “What’s the difference? It’s not like he can hear me.”

  “Don’t be so sure about that.”

  Dal placed his hand on Hadrian’s head, thinking about his befriending him when he was a little boy, later telling him stories, then helping his mother, and now teaching him to use his newfound powers. If he dies, it’s because he believed in me. The old man had chided him, belittled him, and joked with him. In the end, Hadrian wasn’t just his mentor, he was one of them, one of the group, and a friend, a good one.

  Dal wasn’t mad at Hadrian, he was upset at the prospect of losing him. He never should have blamed him for Soren. That must have been difficult to bear. Yet Hadrian had accepted the abuse and never batted an eye. Dal had needed someone to blame because the pain had been too fresh. So Hadrian had taken that yoke from Dal’s shoulders and borne it all this time. He had shielded Dal and had protected him since the day they had met. Hadrian had been the father Dal hadn’t had since he was seven years old.

  Dal turned and buried his face in Deidre’s shoulder. His body racked with sorrow, he broke down and cried like a baby. Soren, the farm, his father, now Hadrian, it was too much. Deidre held him, her scent familiar and her warmth now calming. After a while his tears subsided. He was embarrassed.

  “I’m sorry,” he mumbled into her shoulder.

  “Don’t be,” she whispered. “You’ve had to be so strong, not just for yourself but for us. You’re allowed to cry. We all are.” Her eyes were red with grief too, but she was also smiling. “I miss my family, and I’ll never get to see them again, not until the end. But I can’t help feeling that this is all part of something bigger, some master design. Is that horrible for me to say? Don’t you feel it too?”

  “I don’t know what I believe right now. Before I woke up in here, I was having a dream. Hade and I were fishing. It was like his spirit was there with me and saying essentially the same thing you just said. It’s stupid. I know, yet I can’t help but feel it was real.”

  “It’s not stupid at all.” She kissed his cheek.

  “I needed you to say that, whether you believe it or not.” For the first time ever, he initiated a kiss. And they stayed awhile before deciding to learn more about the Brotherhood.

  They left Hadrian and made their way along the main corridor, discovering that it connected to a series of caverns carved deep into the earth, which must have required centuries to compete. Too perfectly designed to be natural, the labyrinth had to be the work of the Druids. How much magic this must have required! And their entire way was lighted by orbs like the ones Dal had seen when he first awoke in the chamber.

  They came to a large circular room. Sean welcomed them, as Pad and Curran were involved with Liam.

  “Focus on the doll,” Liam was saying to Pad, who was staring at a row of large straw dolls the size of people at the opposite end of the chamber. He was shirtless, and beads of sweat lined his face. Clear skin showed where a horrible scar would have existed for the rest of Pad’s life.

  “It’s not working,” he said, lowering his hands and wiping his face with them

  “It will. Remember, it is only you and the dolls. Nothing else exists.”

  Pad closed his eyes and lifted his hands. Nothing happened, but soon clear weaves went from Liam and into Pad’s body. Pad’s face darkened as his brow furrowed. Brown weaves emerged from his chest and extended to the dolls and settled on the ground beneath them. The weaves grew thicker and brighter as Pad let out a yell. Multiple explosions riddled the dolls and a series of booms echoed off the walls. When the dust settled, all of the dolls were torn to shreds.

  “Very good!” Liam said. “We’ll make a Druid out of you yet!”

  Liam must have used spirit to rile Pad. Dal was familiar with that feeling. He turned his attention to Curran, who was staring at a different set of dolls, in the corner. He lifted his hands and a single clear weave shot out, almost too fast for Dal to spot. It hit the head of one doll, decapitating it, no different if it had been done with an ax. The head rolled to the corner of the room.

  “Excellent work,” Liam said.

  Curran created additional weaves, but had trouble destroying more than one doll at a time. The good part was that he seemed to be able to channel on a whim. So, while Pad was the stronger of the two, Curran possessed better control and focus.

  Liam motioned to Deidre. “Young lady, if you please.” He motioned for her to join the session. Deidre blushed, but came over to him and stared at one of dolls left from Curran’s session. “Release everything into the stream and become one with it.”

  She held her hands up, palms extended outward. A single thin blue weave made its way toward the doll directly across from her. The line suddenly pulsed and grew thicker, a giant icicle appearing in front of her. It began to spin, slowly at first and then speeding up its rotation. She made a pushing motion, and the icicle burst forward, slamming the doll in the chest, piercing it and pinning it to the wall. Liam nodded approvingly.

  Deidre had been healed first, since her injury, while potentially deadly, was the quickest and easiest to repair, with the scars on her legs actually requiring more time. And she’d started training six hours after her arrival, so she had almost a full day on both Pad and Curran.

  Her Prime was water, and she was turning red at Liam’s praise. Dal laughed. He marveled at how she could be so fierce one moment and bashful the next. Women and their moods. But as he considered the intimate interludes they’d been sharing with increasing regularity of late, he decided women had a lot of really special sides to themselves that more than made up for the occasional bad ones.

  “I think that’s enough for now,” Liam announced. “Unless you’d like to give us a demonstration, Dalziel?” Liam raised an eyebrow.

  “No, not right now,” Dal said. “Maybe later.”

  “As you wish, young Seraph.” Dal raised the other eyebrow.

  Pad and Curran took that as their cue to leave. They each saluted Dal warmly as they passed, Pad giving him a playful shove, his temperament improving along w
ith his health. Dal and Deidre had decided, since he was a Seraph, that it would be best if he asked about the Brotherhood without her present, so she followed the boys out.

  Once they were alone, Liam asked, “Is there something wrong, Dalziel?”

  “Call me Dal,” Being called Dalziel reminded him too much of Hadrian.

  “Very well, Dal, how may I help you?”

  “I want to know more about the Brotherhood.”

  “Ah, yes. I guess this is as good a time as any to discuss what we are and our true function.” He nodded to Sean and gestured to a set of chairs around a table, and everyone took a seat. “We are an ancient order. Most people think of us as Druids, and we do have a strong core of magic-users. But the Brotherhood refers to the whole resistance movement, including our army, which is a small one composed mostly of farmers, but an army nonetheless. From the beginning it was made up of brave and honorable men willing to sacrifice their lives to defend Ibernia, which by itself was enough for us to accept them into the Brotherhood.

  “Our order didn’t officially begin until the time of Matioch, a thousand years ago. He was our founder and leader. Unfortunately, many of his chronicles were either lost or destroyed. However, we do know he bore witness to the Scion Luan during the war with the Woads. I imagine Hadrian has told you the stories.”

  “Sort of. But what exactly was the Scion supposed to do? I asked Hade, but he always said I’d find out when the time came.”

  “Save the world, which he did. He defeated the Woads and fulfilled the prophecy of the Scion:

  When the five are in the sky

  The time will be at hand

  On his wings the world may die

  Destruction’s in his band

  The sea shall be in his face,

  Though fire’s in his heart

  He shall provide the race

  Though they shall know him not

  Binding the people to himself

  They shall soon lament

  When five are one and one is five

  Then the earth shall rest”

  “How did he fulfill them?”

  Sean answered his question. “He had four companion Seraphs: Catriona, Ronan, Taryn and Doylan. Catriona was the Water Seraph, Ronan the Earth Seraph, Taryn was the Air Seraph, and Doylan the Spirit Seraph. We aren’t sure what happened to them after the final battle of the war, but we know not all of them survived. I guess it doesn’t matter. Those who survived would be long dead anyway.”

  “Hade told me some of this too. And now I fulfill the ‘fire in his heart’ line in the rhyme.” Dal scratched his head.

  “When Matioch became our leader, he was in charge of supplying his army with armaments and provisions, so that also fits,” said Liam.

  “But how could the people not know him if he was their leader?”

  “He was relatively unknown before the war started. We believe that is what that line refers to. The ‘five is one and one is five’ line clearly refers to the support his friends gave him. They fought and laid down their lives for Ibernia. And in the end we won. We’ve learned from the histories that the land was bountiful in those days, a clear sign of Dio’s pleasure with us. Our magic was also stronger than ever, though our days of using magic as a weapon were over. Or so we hoped.” He sighed. “It seems we are to be used as weapons once more.”

  “But if Luan then fulfilled the prophecies, why am I a Seraph? Shouldn’t this stone not exist anymore?” Dal lifted up his fire stone, which pulsed and vibrated in his hand.

  “We’re honestly not sure.” Liam’s face showed his concern for the question. “Many in our order believe that the stones are found in times of great need, not just for the Scion. This, of course, would qualify as one of those times. Some of us think that the stones regenerate when they are needed, while others feel they were hidden, to be discovered later. All we know is that it appears that Dio wanted us to have a weapon against this new enemy. Perhaps it is cyclical to assume that every thousand years the Seraphs come to save Ibernia. Who knows? One thing’s for certain, though, for those of us who believe in the prophecy. Since you have the fire stone, the other stones are out there somewhere. There can’t be just one Seraph. So you’ll soon have company.”

  That was a revelation to Dal. He had never thought about the possibility of other Seraphs. Where were they? He’d certainly like to learn from them. Maybe there had been some sort of mix-up, and he was just a caretaker for the stone until the true Fire Seraph came forward. It would probably be a soldier of some sort.

  “I still don’t understand this great power I’m supposed to be feeling that goes through me,” Dal said.

  “You are a Seraph, Dio’s holy instrument on earth. You are the instrument of His judgment, the tool of His mercy as well as His wrath.”

  “But what does that mean? I don’t feel His presence. All I feel is a stone that turns colors and hums and vibrates.”

  “He meant for you to find it. Nothing happens by chance, my friend. You are now His. Your actions, like them or not, are directed by Him. Whether you feel it or not is irrelevant, as long as you know it in your heart. Your emotions will betray you, Dal, so you must rely on what you know in here and in here.” He pointed to Dal’s heart and head.

  Dal wished he could believe that. They left the area and their echoing steps seemed to follow them down the corridor.

  They had followed the trail for two days, and Wulf was pleased with his army’s progress. They were halted in the middle of a clearing at the bottom of a hill. The tracks they were following had come to an abrupt halt. Wulf didn’t understand it. How can footprints just stop? It’s like they vanished into thin air. Yet that was what his trackers had told him.

  “Keep searching!” his voice boomed. His scouts spread out, combing the brush and animal paths. There had to be an explanation, a logical solution to this problem.

  Wulf noticed a large patch of packed earth at the base of the hill. Odd. He understood why the scouts had missed it. He almost missed it himself. But there was no denying it. This area of earth was about the size of a man and the grass there seemed markedly short compared to the rest of the area. Wulf put his hand against the patch. What if….”Lothar!” he barked.

  Lothar came running, an anxious look on his face. The man was sweating enough to drown a horse. “Yes m’lord?”

  “Bring up a Golem unit, I want to test something.”

  “M’lord?”

  The look Wulf gave Lothar told him not to ask one question, and he scurried off.

  Could it be that simple? Have they been hiding in the low ground outside of Dunkirk all these years? It made little difference. Even if the Andals had confirmed this before, they wouldn’t have had the ability to pursue the Druids once the opening was closed. Until now.

  Wulf heard a clanking noise he had grown accustomed to on this trek. To his right stood an Andal in one of the suits, and it was aglow with energy, brown veins pulsing, running up and down the arms and legs. On the back of the suit was a metallic box. This was what the Engineer called a generator, and it powered the magic the suit used. The Andal in the suit was wearing gloves, and each had a circular disc in the palm of each hand. Wulf didn’t know what made the suit work, only the Engineer knew that. But he knew not to stand anywhere near the front of it when whoever was wearing it raised his hands.

  Wulf pointed at the mound in the hill. The man in the Golem unit, as it was called, raised his hands and a humming noise came from the suit. Wulf made sure he was well off to the side, then he heard a blast and felt the earth shake. Chunks of dirt flew into the air. Wulf stared at what was now a deep hole with an opening large enough for a man to fit through. He allowed himself a smile. He was going to enjoy this.

  TWENTY

  Dal felt the earth above him shake. Another earthquake? He was by himself in the training room, two sizzling dolls staring at him from across the chamber floor. He had been practicing weaving air to move them and then creating fire weaves to attack th
em. The results had mostly been positive. Several Druids rushed past the room. Dal spotted Liam running toward the pathway leading up.

  “Liam, what’s happening?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure, but it’s very bad. Maybe Andals.” Dal swallowed hard. If Andals had found the base, the Druids were in trouble. And without his leading the Andals here, none of this would have happened. Why do I bring suffering wherever I go? Without asking, he followed Liam.

  Liam and Dal rounded a corner in the cave. A Druid raised his hand and a blast of fire rocketed toward something around a curvature in the rock wall. Just as fast, an arrow from a crossbow bolt hit the Druid flush in the chest. He tried to cry out but could only create a wheezing noise as he slumped to the ground. The Druid managed to raise his hand as three Andal soldiers came barreling toward him. He wove air and sent one of the three soldiers hurtling backward as the other two men plunged their pikes into him. A gurgling noise followed, and then he lay still.

  “No!” Dal yelled, igniting a fire blade in his hand and charging at the Andals.

  One man thrust his pike at Dal, aiming for his stomach. Dal sidestepped the thrust and slashed downward, breaking off the end of the weapon. The Andal raised his damaged pike, using it as a club to swing at Dal, who again stepped aside, thrusting upward with his blade, which entered under the man’s chin and protruded though the top of his skull. Dal withdrew his fiery sword as the dead Andal fell to the ground.

  Dal got out of the way as the second man was thrusting his spear toward him. He was ready to cut the lance in two when a sheet of thin ice appeared at the Andal’s neck. The sheet passed through, decapitating him. Blood spurted from the headless soldier, his weapon still at mid thrust.

  Dal spotted Liam, his hand raised. He nodded his appreciation for his help as Liam said, “Poor Devin. He died defending us. We won’t forget you, friend, rest easy.” He closed Devin’s eyes.