“No,” Hakon muttered, realizing how like a child he sounded.
Magnus chuckled sadly. “If nothing else, I know you’re not cruel. That’s more than can be said for some people. Regardless of where you stand, I hope he, at least,” Magnus gestured down to the wolf at Hakon’s feet, “has made it clear that you are not beyond redemption. He did for me.”
“He has.”
The curly-haired Fosporian grinned and nodded, leaving Hakon in peace. Sleep claimed him, but soon he awakened with nothing but the stars overhead to light the way, as the fire had long died out.
“Rise, Wolfborn.”
He leaped to his feet, grabbing up his sword and snarling, ready to gut anything that came near him. But in the woods near their camp, he saw one of the fox-like creatures, passionless eyes piercing into his thoughts.
“Come, Wolfborn. Your father calls.”
Hakon looked down to see Stefan was no longer there. With a grimace, he followed the fox. Amid into the thicket of dead and dying trees, he soon lost track of theVeratii. Grunting with frustration, he pushed forward, until his eyes caught beams of bright sunlight streaming through the brush. A little further, and he once again stood in the endless green valleys of Dranasyl, where Stefan waited for him.
“My son,” he spoke softly, and threw his arms as far around Hakon as they would go.
“What—what is this?” the warrior muttered, pushing Stefan away.
The Prophet sighed, picking up his staff. “Father Thomas gave you a rude awakening, Matthias. You have a lot of work to do, but I wanted you to know that you are loved.”
Hakon’s stance softened considerably, and his irritated snarl fell away. “Thank you, Father.”
Stefan grinned, and gestured deeper into Dranasyl. As they walked, the sun disappeared, and stars filled the horizon. The inky, purple sky was alight with ribbons of color stretching across the heavens, and flowering plants, glowing blue, yellow, and purple, bloomed. Hakon tried his best not to look moved or terribly awed. In the distance, the warrior spotted Creideam, the intricate blue patterns in his fur glowing in the night, his eyes ever watchful.
“It is time you met some of my other guides; dryads and servants of the Creator who have spoken with humanity before.”
Hakon was about to protest, but his mind drifted as he heard a haunting melody carried on the wind. Stefan looked back with a knowing smile as they drew toward a crystal river, where, around a fire, there was a dance eerily similar to the ones Hakon knew on the great feast days of the Altani. He could see no instruments, but the melody was almost irresistible here. Animals of the forest, from spritely foxes and rabbits to lordly stags, capered in a circle around the single most beautiful woman Hakon had ever seen.
As he drew closer, he saw that she was not human. Her long, braided hair was made of garlands of vines and flowers, and her flawless skin was marble. Almond-shaped eyes that shimmered like diamonds caught Hakon, and she beckoned him as she offered a dazzling smile.
“Come, Hakon Wolfborn,” she said in a voice sweet as honey. “Dance with me.”
“I do not know how,” he muttered in response.
The woman chuckled, and it sounded like the rustling of leaves on a summer day. “You cannot lie to me, Hakon.” She gripped his arm with a strength that her supple frame belied, and pulled him into the circle. “I know the hearts of men.”
Stefan stifled a laugh as he watched his son blush profusely as the woman pulled him in. Even Creideam wore a wolfish grin at Hakon’s flailing attempts to dance. “My son, this is Leannan,” Stefan explained. “Another dryad of the earth. She is known to the Altani.”
“Before they became so dull and dour,” Leannan giggled, twirling around Hakon. He was beginning to see the rhythm, but his feet were large and clumsy. “You may know me as Dagmar.”
“Dagmar?” Hakon sputtered. “Shieldmaiden Dagmar, Bride of Battle and Mother of Warriors?”
“Dryads do not know carnal pleasure, so if I were a mother, it would be news to me,” she giggled again. Hakon could listen to that laugh all day. “But I aided the Altani after the fall of Altun. And I have been waiting for you, Hakon, for many years.”
“You have?”
“Prophecy has spoken of you and your father… my sister can explain.” Leannan smiled wide, pointing up.
Hakon turned his gaze to the sky. Across the stars flew a woman who gazed down upon him as if he were an ant. She shone like the fire below, with such intensity against the night sky it made Hakon’s eyes water. Her golden hair and silver skin seemed to be made of light itself, and from her back sprouted massive, feathered wings.
As she landed, Hakon averted his eyes and bowed, muttering “My lady.”
“Manners,” the winged being noted with a hint of approval. Her fiery eyes turned to Stefan. “Perhaps he is your son after all, Prophet.”
Stefan bowed his head respectfully before moving closer to Hakon. “My son, this is Abarrane. She is the holder of my prophecy; the first messenger from the Creator.”
Hakon frowned. “What prophecy?”Abarrane turned her eyes heavenward, and she spoke in a voice not entirely her own.
“Out of barren nothingness, life and freedom.
His name will be Liberator, Teacher, and Redeemer.
His blood is that of Providence and holy creation,
And by his blood will mankind be redeemed,
By his blood will the world know the coming of a new dawn.
He will know betrayal and loss, yea, even unto death,
For the sins of the past demand retribution.
But his seed shall be strong, and through him,
Death will yield to everlasting life.”
As Abarrane finished her prophecy, she softened her gaze at Hakon, and the warrior looked from her to Stefan. “What does this all mean?”
Stefan wore a mysterious expression. “My son, it means I have a task that must be carried to the bitter end. It is one I would like you to accompany me on. I cannot speak in the mortal world, and my people need to be reminded of their virtues. I would ask you to be my voice.”
“You want me to speak for you?” he scoffed. “I am no man of letters, Father.” His shoulders slumped, and he turned away from Stefan. “I am not worthy to speak to others of virtue, I’m only beginning to learn what the word means, myself.”
“Matthias?” For once, the warrior answered to the name, and turned back to his father. “Regardless of the obvious point that you’re the only one who can know my words, I love you. And I want you to feel loved. Walk with me, and be Hakon no longer. I want to help people, and I believe you do as well, now.”
The huge man sighed bitterly as he knelt, bowing his head. “I’m not made for this task. I’m a fighter. A killer. It is all I will ever be.”
Stefan tilted his son’s head back up. “You are what you choose to be. I will not force you, my son. I have my task, and it must be fulfilled; but it is my burden to bear, not yours. I merely want you by my side, and I hope you want that as well.”
The hulking warrior collected his thoughts, and then finally spoke. “Then I will walk with you, Father,” he said quietly. “I will be your voice.” Thus, where Hakon knelt, Matthias rose.
Stefan embraced his son, and was himself embraced, though it resulted in the Prophet being lifted several inches off the ground. When the two separated, Matthias looked up, and saw that the dryads had disappeared. Father and son were alone. “What happened to Creideam and the rest?”
The Prophet chuckled. “I will explain everything when you wake up.”
Matthias woke with a gasping start. A gray morning sky, gloomy and heavy with clouds, hung overhead, and he pulled at his covers to ward against the chill. Taking several deep breaths to calm himself, he looked down at the wolf resting at his feet.
“It was a dream, then?” Matthias asked as the wolf opened his huge maw and yawned.
“Of course it was. That doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.”
The son narrowed his eyes. “What did happen, then?”
“You needed to talk after your encounter with Father Thomas. I brought you somewhere that you could. Creideam, Leannan, Abarrane, they were real, and they remember you. And don’t you feel better about the situation?”
Matthias grumbled. “Yes. But don’t trick me like that again.”
“I make no promises.”
The party marched along a muddy road, the rolling plains around them grey and dead. It was an ugly start to winter, thanks to the sleet and icy slush. The weather was discouraging, but the old disciples looked to each other to raise their spirits.
Matthias watched as Derogynes and Magnus struck up friendly banter.
“You’ve lost weight, Magnus,” Derogynes commented. “When I was here last, you specifically reminded me of a ball of dough.”
Magnus smirked. “Growing my own food has made me appreciate its finite nature, though if I’ve lost weight, you found it,” the Fosporian returned, elbowing the ambassador’s paunch.
“Ah, I’ve never heard that one before,” Derogynes said dryly.
The warrior turned his attention to Irene and Floriana, both on horseback. “Of course, you must consider that my brother may not stay on his throne once we’re done with our task,” Irene was saying.
The princess frowned. “Who shall lead our nation?”
“Well, you, naturally. We’ve chosen to have a monarch; there’s no going back now. We cannot exactly ask for a new government as if the old one were a bad bit of weaving.”
Floriana shook her head. “I’m not ready to lead.”
“Dear,” Irene reached out, squeezing Floriana’s hand. “Of course you are.”
Matthias turned his attention away, grimacing as he looked down.
“What troubles you, my son?”
He absent-mindedly scratched Stefan’s ears. “It’s nothing.”
“Give them time. You started this venture separating yourself from them, and now you need to wait for them. They are good people, and they will warm up to you soon enough.”
Matthias nodded, but his head jerked up as the mage designated as a scout came riding back to the party. “Your Highness!” He bowed his head to Floriana. “Up ahead, Inquisitors.”
As they drew closer, everyone became quiet. Out of a forest ahead on their path, half a dozen black-clad Inquisitors burst from the woods on horseback, riding down two young men. Keeping their distance, Matthias and his party watched as the Inquisitors hunted their quarry, knocking both men flat on their backs. Though they struggled, the fugitives were well and truly caught. The lead Inquisitor leaped from his horse, and produced a whip.
Matthias immediately grabbed for his sword, but it was Derogynes who held him back. The warrior spun around, furious at the Andrathi, but the ambassador glanced at the steely expressions on the mages that guarded Floriana.
“Not here, not now,” Derogynes hissed. “These men are still loyal to Cyril. If you attack the Inquisitors now, we’ll have to fight two fronts at the same time.” Wherever their loyalties lay, everyone recoiled at the sharp crack of the whip, and the cries for help that were carried across the flat plains.
“Press on. There is a village in those woods we must reach,” Stefan ordered.
“Perhaps we should turn around,” Irene suggested. “We don’t have time to get entangled with Cyril’s thugs.”
“No,” Matthias returned. “Stefan wants us to go ahead. There is a village in the woods we must reach.”
Magnus frowned. “All that would be on this path is Ferrin’s Glade. It’s not so much a town as it is a logging camp with aspirations of village-hood.”
“Stefan says we go. So we go.” Matthias marched along the path into the forest with the wolf in tow, and, after a moment of hesitation, everyone else followed.
As they passed under the shade of bare and gnarled trees, they heard a cry for help, slowly growing closer to them.
“Another victim of the Inquisitors?” Irene wondered. But out of the dry brush, a fair haired man with tanned skin rushed up breathlessly to the party.
“Please! Help us!” he gasped.
Magnus was the first to step forward. “What seems to be the problem, friend?”
“Are you all armed?” He looked them over, his eyes falling on Matthias, who was carrying his shield strapped to his back. “Oh, Creator be praised. Our village is under attack by bandits! The Inquisitors were meant to protect us, but they were so consumed with catching heretics, they all ran off shortly before the attack began. Please, you must help us!”
Matthias looked down to the wolf, who returned a mysterious gaze. “I will help,” the warrior declared, drawing his sword and shield.
To a few surprises, it was Floriana who nodded with approval. “We will all do what we can.”
The man bowed his head in relief. “Bless you, my lord, my lady.” He pointed back into the woods. “But please, hurry! I don’t know how long we can hold out.”
As Matthias and his companions rushed to the village, their guide hastily told them his home’s sad story. The village of Ferrin’s Glade was a humble community; an overgrown logging camp beside a river that cut through the forest around them. It was a collection of rough earthen shacks and huts, huddled around a large meeting hall and mill, and for a few dozen families, it was home.
In recent years, a group of outlaws and bandits had preyed on Ferrin’s Glade, demanding extortion money and sapping them dry in hopes of driving them out and claiming the camp as a new base for their gang. Now, with Inquisitors crawling all over the place, the gang had lost their patience; they needed a safe hiding place to escape the law, and the woodcutters of Ferrin’s Glade were in their way.
As Matthias and his companions arrived, most of the village had been overrun. A lone rogue, armed with a dagger and poking around the abandoned huts, leered over a cornered young woman with tan skin and fair hair. “Well, sweet little thing like you needs a man’s company, eh?” the outlaw jeered, flashing a hungry smile as he brandished his blade. “Be a good, quiet girl, and I won’t tear that pretty little scalp off your head.”
The woman screamed for help, tears in her eyes, but then watched in stunned wonder as the rogue froze in place, his limbs locked up. He fell in a heap on the dirt floor, face twitching and eyes wide with impotent terror. The young woman looked at her rescuer, an older woman that flashed her golden eyes in a sneer down at her victim. She had a staff in one hand, and offered the other to the young woman.
“Are you alright?” Irene asked, pulling the shaken woman to her feet. The girl could not manage words right this moment, so she only nodded fervently. “Good. I need you to go to the meeting hall; run. My friends there will keep you safe. Now, go!”
Outside the meeting hall, a battle had been joined. Defending it were robed mages summoning lightning to seer the bandits and led by Floriana, sending shots of fire as quickly as an archer firing arrows. Derogynes was armed with a bow and, for a legion veteran a few decades out of practice, proved a capable shot. Magnus tended to the fallen and the wounded while Matthias, banging his sword and shield in an open challenge to the bandits, served as the main bulwark. He spied a young woman fleeing from the direction Irene had left to look for survivors, and he reached to pull her to safety.
“Get behind me!” Matthias shouted, bashing one of the bandits with his shield before sheltering the woman from a peppering of arrows. “Get inside with the others.”
The woman shook her head. “I want to help! Please, I’m good with a sling.”
“You have a name?” Matthias grunted, sliding his sword into a charging bandit.
“Gwen—my name is Gwen!”
The warrior jerked his head over to some men behind the line of mages, armed with bows. Gwen recognized some of them; her father was there, and the leader of their village. “Go stand with them if you’re willing to fight,” Matthias ordered, knocking down a bandit before letting out a fearsome roar, mounting a charge of his own.
Magnus and Floriana flanked him, summoning up great walls of earth to push back the bandits he did not cut down. He was quickly growing an appreciation for magic.
He spotted the bandits’ leader, some damn fool wearing a horned helmet, of all things. Beating his chest, he charged for the horned man, and took a swing with his sword that the bandit leader managed to dodge. They exchanged blows; swords met and the sound of ringing metal carried across the battlefield.
Matthias never lost his senses, though. He would not so easily slip into a berserker rage, and he realized how much more aware he was of his surroundings. Bashing the bandit leader with his shield, his pointed ears, no longer muffled by his thick mane of hair, picked up the unmistakable sound of a bow string being drawn back, and he spotted an archer on a hill. The bandit leader was charging back for more; Matthias raised his shield and hoped the archer was a terrible shot. Surprisingly, however, a stone sliced through the air, toppling the archer. Maybe Gwen wasn’t as helpless as she appeared.
Turning his attention back to the bandit leader, Matthias threw down his shield and bellowed another war cry, swinging his sword with such ferocity that he knocked his opponent’s sword out of his hand and left a nasty gash along his arm. Before the bandit leader had time to react, Matthias braced his powerful muscles and grappled with him, overpowering the hapless man and gripping his horned helmet, steering him into the ground before the hulking warrior shoved his sword through his chest.
“Horned helmets. Stupidest idea in warfare,” Matthias muttered. He looked up at the other bandits with a challenge in his eye. Seeing their leader dead, those not in the immediate vicinity fled, as their scouts spotted the Inquisitors banners on the horizon.
With the battle won, Matthias turned back to the village. Hearing the cheers of their friends and family, the people of the village came streaming out of the meeting hall, with profuse thanks to the Creator and to their stalwart defenders.
The leader of Ferrin’s Glade, a rough-looking man with a gray beard and leathery skin, stepped forward and gladly shook Matthias’ hand, dwarfed though he was by the warrior. Despite his appearance though, he spoke in a manner that did not suit a logger. “My friend, you travel in august company. Who would have thought Hierophant Magnus and the Princess Floriana herself would come to our aid? Tell us, who are you to come so quickly to defend of our humble home?”
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