Legacy of the Defender (The Defender Series Book 1)

by Jacob Spadt

  He was nowhere around. I could not risk disengaging to look for him. The attack was too intense. Chances were we would find one another in the middle of the horde and end up in a back-to-back fight like I had always imagined. Even alongside each other, the chance of failure was feasible. Eventually, those defending would tire, and the invading numbers would be unending. My faith in the skills of the angelic hosts renewed as I saw the ferocity in their fight. I had seen warriors lead with valor and command men with ferocious courage.

  I found myself barking out commands to form lines and stand fast. The portal was about five yards across and it flowed like a waterspout fully open. They poured through faster than could be measured, hundreds every few seconds. My skill at gauging the size of a host was good, which scared me. It was as if hell opened up on Heaven through a fire hose, which simply kept flowing.

  The horde owned the sky.

  Arrows and bolts would occasionally kill a daemon on the wall, but mostly the Archers focused on the sky. Angels tried to fight them in the air, but gangs of daemons descended upon them before they could get very far. The archers were far more effective in taking them out in flight, for they aimed at the entire cloud of daemons blanketing the sky. Dozens of daemons fell with every volley. Flyers increased every minute the portal spewed forth reinforcements. The tide was starting to turn in their favor.

  A thing of beauty floated across the sky. Her sword glowed with gold light, and her wings beat heavy and strong. She wore the purest of white garments, fluttering behind her like snowy fire. I did not see any armor. Her blue eyes locked on mine, and I could see the concern on her face. She flew down to the wall to join the battle, unprepared in my opinion. At once, a giant clawed hand plucked her from the air. It was one of the large wingless daemons. The monster bit her head clean off and screamed. It threw her body at the line of archers in a distant tower, hitting several. Another angel fell at my feet, headless. Two more dropped nearby, their wings gone. My heart raced.

  Heaven was losing.

  On the wall, angels fell in uncountable numbers. Even though more filled their spots on the line, the fight was dismal. We pressed to get to the breach. I never thought I would see an angel get its wings torn from her back. It took two of the medium flyers to grab it and make a wish. A sickening rip sounded out before there was a shower of red. The angel did not fall but continued to fight the best she could. My stomach turned to see her bleeding out. Such beauty covered in gore. She killed one of the flyers that had one of her wings. The second fell from my sword. Her legs began to buckle and I grabbed her arm.

  “Fall back and get some healing,” I said trying to not to sound as if I was giving an order to an angel.

  “My Lord, the healers were the first to fall.”

  “Wait, you mean to tell me they hit the healers first?”

  “Yes my Lord.”

  “Can you heal yourself?”

  She nodded. “It will take some time, but I can stop the bleeding.”

  “Go then. There is no reason to lose your life if you can live to fight another day.” She begrudgingly started to walk away and fell flat on her face. They ripped her apart when a sudden wave of attackers surged forward. My body wanted to puke and fought back the pain from witnessing such evil. Until now all of the carnage I witnessed was against me. Even though the creatures in the forest died, I did not witness much of it. Angels were dying by the hundreds. How many could Heaven spare?

  My attention turned back to the horde. I could not believe what I heard. The enemy not only breached the shields, but they managed to target the ones who can keep the guardians fighting…healers. Their gift was to give their life energy to the wounded. Depending on the skill level of the healer, each one could help dozens. Healing was all they did. Then they slept, and could do it again the next day. Something was seriously wrong. I needed to find Mathias fast or I felt we would lose this battle. Time was up.

  Next to me dozens of daemons imploded and turned to dust. A flash of light and another group went down in a large swath. My eyes focused on decorated and prestigious armor suddenly visible. A blade, glowing bright, flashed out taking dozens of the denizens again. I could feel the heat just like when a fire roars to life. Its reach was incredible. Fire leapt from the end as it rose and fell extending the killing zone by several feet.

  An officer of some kind stood a dozen feet before me wearing ornate armor and a winged helm. His chiseled features were obvious from under his helm that looked Spartan by design. His wings tucked in tight allowing his movement to be fluid in tight ranks. Behind him was a host of angels dressed the same. A new legion arrived that looked like battle hardy veterans. As the leader strode up to me, another strike took down an even larger group that simply vaporized. He nodded to me.

  “Where is Mathias?” I shouted.

  "Who?"

  "Mathias, he is my master...I must find him."

  His hand raised and point towards the center of the breach. All I saw was swarms of daemons flying now where the fighting was heaviest. Somehow it did not surprise me to learn the location of my master. My destination was clear. The horde surged suddenly again and the portal tore open farther. The uncontrolled flow turned into a deluge filling the skies. A wave of daemons slammed into the veterans and decimated the ranks as if breaking on sand. The angelic formation folded in on itself as they turtle shelled. Still outside, the commander stood before me still swinging his mighty blade at the tide in utter defiance.

  “Turn around and fall back, you are going to die.” Blood flowed freely from his wounds.

  “This is what we do, my Lord.” With that, he and these men threw himself in to a swarm of daemons and began to take them apart by the hundreds. It did not matter. Their sacrifice was tragic, but in war, people died…throw enough bodies at the machine to win. Most of the time it was sheer numbers that won over strategy. Spinning several times with blades out wide to clear my area, I turned my attention back to where Mathias was said to be and advanced. Daemons re-engaged me, a wide swath formed as they fell to righteous fury. Strikes rose and fell rhythmically with each step. I almost did not feel any resistance anymore when my blades connected with a target. Like a knife through butter, they passed unhindered. It was a bit over stated but now that I was actually doing it, but the statement to be true.

  The top of the wall was slick with angelic blood. Angels continued to fall, adding to the mire of daemon ash blended with heavenly blood. The duet in my head spoke.

  "Unleash us. The time is right." Amidst my swings, I inquired what my companions meant. An image filled my head of a flaming arc of energy decimating even more of my foes, extending off the tips of my blades like the blade the veteran commander had. Each swing felt as if time stopped and the path of destruction was incredible. The fallen were beyond count. Focus rushed forward in my mind. My blades had a request to empower them.

  A vortex of death surrounded me.

  Energy flowed up the blades. My hands felt like they were in an oven. I knew that feeling. Something was about to change. The same effect seen on that veteran officer’s blade leapt from mine on my next attack. A primal yell came from my lips as the pain in my hands reached its max like before. Thankfully my blades did not slip one iota. The daemons engaging the angels around me turned to look giving the host time for a few free shots.

  My next attack cleaved many of them in two; an arc of energy shot away from the blade as it cut and I watched in surprised satisfaction and this energy continued through several ranks of them. A hundred easily died with that swing. The next felled even more and opened a swath several yards deep. No bodies remained of those just killed…holy fire decimated them before they hit the ground. Renewed vigor came over me, and I fell upon my foes even faster and harder.

  In front of me a wall of daemons crawled away from me in an attempt to retreat. Stacked at least four high, they moved like the tide crashing on the beach. The form rolled away from me. Few left behind died without effort. Suddenly the horde
in front of me thinned. A wave of energy knocked them aside. A suit of bright armor unstained by the death, appeared, and disappeared as the battlefield flowed. The color was a blend of gold and blue. Not a speck of blood touched it. My eyes hurt to gaze upon it for more than a moment. I did not know if it was how it caught the light or the power contained within. I lost sight of him again and fought hard towards his direction.

  Hundreds of the large ones were all over him. It was clear the main host broke through. The tide parted again. I could see it...this portal was massive. I found it odd that the largest of the multi-legged daemons came through last when they could have wreaked more havoc had they been first. Perhaps the smaller ones were harder to control, as they were more animalistic than the bigger smarter ones.

  "Or Fodder!” the duet chimed in response to my thoughts.

  Daemons disintegrated in front of me, felled by Mathias. His mighty swings felled several of them, but they did not go down as easy. They took the hits from the great sword he wielded as if he was swatting them with its flat side. The blade was not the same one he carried during training. It was twice the size and flashed as if made of energy itself. Yet he could not cut these down as he had the lesser before. The host parted as if something pushed through from behind. Several large monsters appeared with thick black blades, standing easily over ten feet tall. He engaged them without hesitation. They parried his attacks almost with ease as the blades did not break and turned his attacks aside. More appeared and surrounded him.

  My master was in trouble.

  His stance suggested he was trying to withdraw. As I approached, fighting my way through the shifting battlefield, something caught my eye that I had never seen. He had majestic wings...huge and beautiful. They shone brightly as if they exuded power and occasionally extended, bashing the horde away. The angels I had fought along did not command the same kind of presence-that is when I truly realized what he was and smiled.

  Mathias was an Archangel. Even under the threat of being overrun, he gracefully backed away where anyone lesser would have lost hope. He parried and attacked in the same strike. I had never seen this move before. My jaw dropped in awe seeing him unleash. Several of them went down, but the hundreds advanced with more coming through the portal. The next wave arrived.

  They were even bigger than the ones we were fighting.

  I moved towards him, studying his movements to anticipate his retreat, carving my way in that direction. The large daemons tried to parry my first few attacks. With their eyes wide with terror, they fell by the dozens now with each swing, black swords cleaved and broken in half. The carnage inflicted upon my foes was unfathomable. Today was to be the day that retribution balanced the ledger.

  I got within several yards and called out, “Master, it is Tathlyn, fall back to your left and I will meet you.”

  “What are you doing here? You should be with your teacher!” he hollered over his shoulder as he spun a few times to give himself some room before falling back the few yards allowing me to reach him. A small lull in the tide gave us a few seconds. I was not wearing a helmet, whereas he had to flip his up and gave me a bloody smile. “It is good to see you, but what are you thinking leaving your teacher?”

  The sensation rolled up to my neck and back to my hands, adding to the rune already forming. Mathias raised his eyebrows as I made a funny expression. Air expelled from my lung as the energy released into my blades. I swung hard at the same time...they simply blew to pieces and continued to combust as they hit the ground...leaving no trace. My jaw dropped and so did Mathias’s.

  “That’s new!” he yelled as he began to engage new targets.

  “I know. It just happened. A lot has happened today.” I felt a twinge. A lot truly had happened today. My mind raced back to what cause all of this, and I thought at that moment that I had seen a lot of the horde coming as they darkened the skies. The horde attacked the strange creatures with the tentacles for arms. Their method of catching and killing was unique. To round out the day and my getting swallowed and then finding the siege of heaven from the other side and seeing the horror that stood at its gates. I did not know where to begin with him, so I started at the end.

  “Malnuras is dead or missing.” I choked on the words. This was painful in ways that I truly could not fathom at that moment.

  “What? What happened out there?”

  “The same thing that happened in here happened to us out there.” My flesh seared hot causing severe pain and I growled to quell it down. It moved to my forehead. The heat was intense. My knees buckled for a moment, and then I realized this was the moment. I did not want to look back today in regret. My feet stayed strong and my arms continued to fight as this new rune formed. I wanted to curse the timing of it but knew that events triggered the changes so I bit my tongue and kept swinging. It must have been a few seconds of silence as we both continued to end daemon lives and move closer to the portal.

  How I even attempted before in training had to be my teacher's influence. That day in that town where the daemon fled and Malnuras called me back. It was puzzling. I felt the rune near completion as my gifts adapted. A voice chimed in my head, the duo of swords always spoke at the most in opportune time, but the wisdom was usually mind blowing.

  "It was an illusion," they said. The pieces finally fit now.

  "Huh!" I said, rolling a few more heads.

  "What did you say?" Mathias barked.

  "Nothing. Just a realization."

  “Can you close that thing? It is a portal designed to penetrate into Earth and they managed to open it here. How did they pull that off?” he asked, causing me to shoot him a quick look. My head nodded slowly before the words came out. I did not know why the answer was yes until I finished a double swing attack that cut even deeper into the ranks of the horde. My new rune was the final piece of the puzzle that allowed me to do so, but I had no idea how. As my blade rose and fell, I looked through my memory for the knowledge of how to approach the task ahead. No sooner had the idea hit my mind...did I find it. Just as fast as I could think it, the dark edges of the rift starting to destabilize like a flat piece of paper on a pond and a whirlpool formed beneath it. Only the whirlpool was the rift and it started to fall in on itself near the edges. Slowly at first, little rips in the fabric that held it open formed first and the hole simply got smaller as it folded in on itself.

  We kept fighting. Daemons continued to crawl or fly out of the portal. The flow did reduce significantly as the opening shrank. It allowed me to get a better look beyond the opaque curtain. To my surprise...my eyes adjusted to the dim light on the other side. A huge winged daemon with a huge nasty sword gazed at me. He was about twenty feet tall and was disgustingly muscled with what looked like pestilent flesh. His skin festered with nasty wounds…vapor rose from them. I could not even tell if there was a gender and almost did not care. Huge horns adorned the head like a crown of bone that had blackened tips dripping some sort of fluid. One large horn protruded from his head like a bastardized version of a Unicorn. The huge wings looked leathery and incapable of sustaining flight, but I knew better. They could fly with disproportionate wings.

  It stood behind a rock pile. A smaller daemon on all fours stood atop of some human. Arcane like symbols were scratched and scrawled on the stones and gave off tremendous energy. The smaller daemon fed on this poor soul. Its toothy maw formed a smile dripping with blood as it looked up at me. Blood ran from open wounds on the humanoid, down the rocks into pools that spread out from my vision from there. A sudden shiver hit when I realized they were using blood magic to open this portal into the same plain, something not thought possible. I lost sight of the ground as the portal got smaller and the burning sensation on my skin increased. My energy flowed throughout my body towards the portal now. I could see it plain as day. It was still hard to maintain focus on memorizing what I saw.

  I leveled my sword at the large daemon in a challenging gesture. A garbled, throaty sounding voice hollered out one sin
gle word, “Amduscias.” and pointed to its own chest as if bragging its name to me as the portal closed. The folding of the fabric became exponential as it fell in on itself, and within a few moments was gone with a small popping sound. I stood there for a moment processing what just happened when a few daemons tried to attack me and but my protections repulsed them. I turned my head and looked at them with what felt like a burning hatred. They were no longer using themselves as a sacrifice to gain access to places. How they found a way to do so and open a portal in Heaven, which God himself protected, was unfathomable.

  After thousands of years, a breach in Heaven’s walls finally happened.

  The small measure of achievement in closing my first portal dissipated as the memory of the humanoid haunted me. The view of the poor soul on the rock pile clung to my heart, making it heavier than ever. A hand on my shoulder pulled my thoughts back to the present. I looked up and caught the smiling eyes of my master. He extended his hand to me and shock took hold for a moment. No one made such a gesture to me since before for I was a student of the two men in my life, not equal. This was a gesture of respect. I hesitated while looking at him, not realizing it was dead silent around me.

  The tide turned. With the portal’s closure, the larger, harder to kill daemons began to fall faster to the regular angels that now formed a ring around my master and me. They crashed up the angelic host and broke while the power of heaven began to weaken the horde’s might. With cries to the almighty they fell on the invaders with renewed vigor.