Of Wind and Waves - Chronicles of the First Age, Book One

by Nathan Quiring

  “C’mon, you don’t want to fight now.” The man from the stump crackled in a rough, rasping voice, his large white beard moving animatedly as he smiled. “You’re such a pretty little thing; I’m sure you’d rather just settle down and hand over your weapons. I promise we won’t hurt you.”

  His smile twisted into a leer, giving the lie to his claim.

  Alec

  They followed Mandy’s scent back around the arena and toward the great hall. Alec stopped near the entrance, licking the blood off of his lips from the men who had been standing guard there and sniffed the chill air again, searching for the giant’s scent. He found it, the most recent trail, and followed it a few feet to make sure it led away instead of into the hall.

  It didn’t make much sense for Gerard to send everyone out unless he sensed some huge threat, but Alec couldn’t think what could possibly register so high for the giant. Again he shrugged it off and accepted the opportunity it offered, shifting so he could open the door then shifting back, then entering the empty great hall and bounding straight through after the familiar scent.

  It led him straight up to the giant’s bedroom and he shift and burst in without hesitation. He felt a slight drain on his energy with the last shift and his stomach rumbled, but he ignored it and searched the large room. Bookshelves covered the walls and a large, Gerard size chair, desk and bed dominated the rest of the otherwise bare room. Mandy lay, blindfolded, gagged, and bound hand and foot, naked on the bed. His cold anger almost turned white hot when he saw what the monster had planned. He rushed over and untied her, being careful not to hurt her in his haste.

  “How did you get in here?” The speaker seemed curious instead of outraged, and the voice was all too familiar.

  Alec ignored it, instead trying to wake Mandy.

  “She’s drugged; you won’t be able to wake her up for another hour or so. I don’t think Gerard wanted her awake for it. He definitely spent enough time in here this afternoon…”

  Alec looked up, a mask of fury covering his deep sorrow. “Wake her. I know you can.” He said it in a harsh, even tone; the sound of the sword drawing free from its scabbard before the fateful strike.

  “I see there is no reasoning with you.” Jeremiah responded in an even tone. “But how will you wake her if you kill me?”

  “How will you live if I rip out your throat?” Alec shouted.

  Jeremiah actually looked surprised, his confident apathy finally cracking. “I- You wouldn’t just-“He stuttered, face quickly registering the fear of death as he realized how far beyond reason Alec truly was. “Wait! Wait, here it is!” He cried, voice shaking almost as much as his hand did as he held out a pouch. “Crush it and hold it under her nose.”

  “Thank you.” Alec growled as he reached out and snapped the frail old fool’s neck.

  Ria

  She slowly backed further into the cave, the smell that had brought her growing stronger with every step. There had to be at least fifteen wolves in there.

  “There’s nowhere to go girly.” The fat man hummed, smile widening as he and the other man matched her step for step, slowly closing in.

  At the last second she heard the careful footfalls of the man behind her and ducked, slashing upward, catching him in the chest and cutting up through his jaw into his skull, the blade really was quite sharp. She felt something dripping down her sword arm. Ignoring it, she continued backing up, then turned and dashed toward the first cage.

  “Where ever do you think you’re going, girly?” The fat man rasped after her as the younger man followed her in.

  She stopped at the first cage and cut it open with one slash straight through the catch. The five wolves looked up briefly and then laid back down, obviously having spent far too long in captivity. The sight almost broke through the hard place that had encased her heart, but not quite, she wasn’t ready to let herself feel, not yet. She morphed as far as she dared and let out an urgent growling whine that immediately pricked up the ears of the five defeated animals. Looking back and finding the soldier almost on her, she howled, putting every ounce of the feeling she couldn’t let reach her mind into the one, universal sound of danger.

  To her relief, the wolves finally got her message and charged out, first looking at her, slightly confused and then turning to the soldier. Seeing one of their captors and not feeling the leash that always accompanied the sight, they bolted for him, eager for revenge. He lasted as long as a slab of meat would have.

  She moved further back, releasing and emboldening every wolf she found. By the time she finally came back out they had devoured all six bodies; the screams of the one she had left on the ground sliced up the back had helped to invigorate them. There were at least forty animals before her, probably every single wolf for miles around. They might have even been breeding them.

  The way they all looked at her as she retrieved her bow, it was like they thought she was Alpha. The sensation was odd, but it would only help her in her purpose.

  “There they are!” came a shout from somewhere in the woods, it appeared that the screams had served a more hostile purpose as well. “Get them!”

  Alec

  Jeremiah crumpled like a bag of sticks as he released a last feeble groan. Alec quickly crushed the small pouch of herbs and it worked almost immediately as he passed it under her nose. Mandy screamed as she came awake and Alec grabbed a massive shirt that was hanging on the chair and wrapped her in it, holding her close as he slowly calmed her down.

  “It’s me Mandy, it’s me; I’ve got you.”

  “I feel so week, I’m so tired.” She said through tears of relief and fatigue.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll carry you. We have to get out quickly though, while everyone is still distracted.

  Grey was pacing nervously as Alec found something to use as a belt, turning the giant shirt into an almost practical dress for Mandy.

  “I’m going to change now, you’re going to ride me out, just wrap your arms and legs around me and hold on tight.”

  She looked baffled, but quickly obeyed when he shifted again, his hunger growing more severe. He and Grey quickly made their way down and into the tunnels, smelling their way through to the cages, Grey killing a few stragglers on the way. He felt exhilarated at the feeling of Mandy clinging so close to him as she sunk her hands deep into his thick red mane, though he was worried this attempt would end just like the last had.

  He could smell the change before he reached the cages. Almost all the animals were gone and sounds of fighting were drifting in from the forest. He continued to the entrance and then looked back up at her. She got the message, hearing the noises as well though not as clearly as Alec’s feline ears could, then slowly and lethargically slid off his back and curled up against the stone wall, obviously even more exhausted by the trip down.

  The sight outside was bewildering. Wolves were everywhere, darting in and out of bushes in almost full dark as hundreds of men with torches slashed and hacked at them, sometimes striking true but more often falling with a scream and spurt of blood. The confusing part was the girl darting in and out with them; the epicenter of the bloodshed, killing just as often with the blade she held as the rest of the wolves.

  Ria

  “Eleven, twelve, thirteen.” She counted as she killed; each one falling with a cry of surprise, then something hit her. She reached up to find an arrow in her shoulder, then held it still and sliced off the end sticking out with a swift slash, only slightly jarring her shoulder in the process. “Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen.”

  “Where are all the damn sleeping arrows?”

  “They’re at the cages, someone go get them!”

  “Twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two.”

  The men were dying easily in the night with only torches to light their way in the woods, but the wolves were dying as well, and there were far more soldiers to kill. Her alpha status in the strange mega pack provided her some extra protection, wolves darting in at the last moment to save her from a fata
l blow time and again, but almost as many wolves were simply running off as were dying, they had satisfied their bloodlust and were more concerned with surviving than revenge.

  “Twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-one.” With each kill the wall of ice in her heart cracked a little more, then with the thirty-fifth kill she felt a tear slide down her cheek as her arms dragged like she was in deep water. The last wolf died, taking a blow meant for her and she brought the blade down in a final swing, slicing through forehead, nose and jaw, then collapsed to the mossy floor in the dark littered with flickering torchlight, the faint smell of damp smoke drifting from the many fallen brands.

  The men quickly surrounded her as she knelt, another arrow piercing her leg and one more in her arm, and wept.

  Alec

  He and Grey snuck closer, trying to figure out what was happening while still remaining unseen. He wanted to make sure he could still escape without any fighting before he went back for Mandy. The smells were roiling around so chaotically that it was hard to distinguish what was happening, especially for one so new to such an accurate sense. So, when the group of soldiers broke out of the woods, rushing for the cave entrance, their torches breaking away from the flickering mass in the woods, it was almost a complete surprise.

  Alec debated anxiously in his mind, would they see Mandy or just go right past her in their rush to complete their task? He shouldn’t have left her in the open like that, it was reckless. He waited, moving to where he would be able act swiftly if need be, and watched to see what would happen. Behind him the screams and howls continued as more and more torches fell to the forest floor, slowly beginning to spread their hungry yellow light.

  There were about seven men rushing around the entrance, looking for something, Alec didn’t care what. His hope began to grow that they would be too hurried to notice a small woman curled up in the corner, especially with the madly darting and shifting light cast from their erratically moving torches. Then Alec’s heart sank.

  “What the hell? What is she doing here?”

  “What? Who cares just find that damn poison! The wolves are escaping!”

  “Wait, isn’t that the girl the Master took? Isn’t that the one he caught with Alec the Red?”

  “Hold on, ya tha- gaaaa!”

  The two nearest Mandy died quickly, but Alec could feel his energy draining rapidly. Something about the form he had taken was taxing his resources more than he could handle.

  “Oh shit! Bloodmane!”

  He released the form and uppercut the man who had announced his presence, sending him flying a few paces backwards, possibly with a broken neck, but the blow was almost all he had left. The other three spread out in front of him, but were hesitant to attack. As much as Alec would have loved to wait it out, he would have to be quick if he was to have any chance of escape; the wolves couldn’t last much longer and there had to be at least five hundred more soldiers out there.

  Just when he was about to charge, exhausted or not, people began emerging from the trees and his heart went cold at the sight of Gerard in the lead. The giant’s face, lit from innumerable flickering torches and the growing fire in the forest behind, was the human embodiment of a hurricane. Alec had never seen him angry and now that he had, he lost all hope of surviving the night. The monster was dragging a thin girl by the hair, her toes barely touching the ground. She was the one Alec had seen surrounded by wolves, slicing her way through one after another of Gerard’s soldiers. Alec collapsed from the hunger and fatigue, all hope gone.

  A deep voice rumbled out like thunder. “I am god! Your defiance of me is your own destruction!”

  Leif

  Oblivion engulfed him as he sank into the ocean’s chill embrace. His mind drifted as did his body, growing dim as great watery currents pulled him into the black depths. Below him, in the near pitch black, something glowed ever so faintly. A great expanse of vast shimmering spires and arches forever lost under endless fathoms of salty pressure. As he drifted, subtle flowing shadows of the waves above bringing him gradually out and down, closer to the only light in a sea of gloom, a counter force met him, delicate, yet unmistakable.

  The almost subconscious strain of the radiation that caused the florescent sheen coming from that ancient graveyard awakened his mind just enough and he truly felt the water for the first time. It was so like the wind he loved, yet different somehow, less easily diverted, more substantial. He thought, almost in passing, how nice would be simply to become water, to drift forever with the waves.

  He felt the warm energy drifting up from the city fill him as he let his mind drift into the kata. So much power, so much energy; it consumed him. He shifted before he had conscious control of his actions and his body lost substance, quickly drifting to the surface. The change shocked him back to full awareness and he almost panicked, but at the last moment he regained himself and forced his form back. The power still coursed through him and, as he broke the surface gasping for air, the events of the last day returned to him like the crashing waves that sent him under again and again and it all began to overwhelm him once more.

  With all his will and strength and with the power he still didn’t understand, he tried to force his way to the surface, not really believing anything he did would succeed. Leif’s will was a strange thing. His habit had been to release control, allowing outside powers to determine his response. For him, will was how he forced himself to let go, to allow whatever happened to pass through and leave him unbroken. But then, as the severity of both his situation and that of so many others he had tried to save hit him, his will, his true will, the power in his mind to overcome that he so rarely accessed, surged forth, and so did he.

  He shot out of the water like a geyser, arcing out and back down. But as he reconnected with the waves he felt the change, he had somehow overcome the water, tamed it. He was water, as he had been air moments before. The joy that filled him was tainted by fear; fear of what he had done. He coursed through the many currents, allowing himself to expand slightly as he made for the shore, all the while still exhilarated by the energy he had soaked up from the glowing city.

  The fear began to assert itself as his conscious thought slowly disconnected, drifting and dissipating, as if he himself were drifting away from his body. At the last second he surged up into the air and reformed, then collapsed on a rocky ledge.

  He lay there panting for hours, or perhaps only minutes, as his mind reformed. The energy still glowed brightly in his veins, but not as powerfully as it had before. Somehow it seemed that his body had found a way to use the radiating energy of the old technology, it was probably what had changed Ria that first time when she entered the city.

  “Ria!”

  His heart raced as adrenaline shot through his system. She was in danger, he could feel it; pain and great sorrow not his own ached through him like a wound. He feared what he must do but instead, as he had done so many times before, he fell into the trance state of the kata and let the fear, pain and sorrow pass through him as he shifted.

  As he allowed himself to expand and float up, he experienced a strange sensation. He could no longer smell, hear or see as senses no longer had organs with which to operate, but he still saw. He saw people, not physical bodies, but glowing bundles of thoughts, emotions and… something else. At first he was confused, lost for direction or purpose, but then he found a light that was connected to him somehow.

  “Ria!” He thought, beginning to feel his mind drift again and hurried to reach her.

  Alec

  He watched in hopeless despair as the girl was thrown to the ground in a crumpled heap of long black hair and blood while at the same time Mandy was pulled from the cave and given the same treatment. All the while the fire grew behind the mad giant as he raged. Alec could still hear hundreds of wounded wolves and men howling and screaming in the rapidly burning forest.

  “Gather wood, you worthless mutts; these two shall burn in the fire of my wrath!”

  Alec tried to take anoth
er step forward, but only collapsed. In minutes they built a pile of wood and threw the girls on top of it; then they came for Alec.

  “Not him! I’ve got other plans for that one.”

  Gerard then ripped a torch from the nearest soldier and threw it on the pyre, then three more, and it quickly took flame. Mandy began screaming, but the other girl simply continued to sob. The fire was just about to encircle the two when an impossible whirlwind howled through it, putting it out completely. Alec looked up, awestruck as the cone of rapidly twisting wind turned back around and tore past Gerard, knocking a dozen men clear off their feet, then dissipated, becoming a tall, lanky man with long, golden hair and a short beard.

  Alec had thought the sheer force of Gerard’s fury would crush anything in its path, but when the giant looked at the impossible man he froze; not in fear, but in bewilderment. Then the rage returned tenfold and Alec wasn’t quite sure if it was the fire or if the man’s face had actually turned blood red.

  Leif

  “I already killed you once and I will do it again!” the giant roared, almost incomprehensible in his hatred.