“This doorway is only a few hours ride from here, we don’t think it is open yet. Esteban, head over there with your mounted forces,” Cecilia said. “Reports say they have only just started to form a camp. Tommie go with him.”
“Where will you go?” Esteban asked.
“I will head to this location to the North, while the dismount- ed aren’t as quick as you we have more of them. Take some of the siege familiars with you. I’ll take the cannons, they move at the same speed as the dismounted.”
“Yes Guardian.” Esteban saluted and turned back to his group. “Make sure you reload,” she said to Tommie.
Tommie nodded and followed Esteban back to the mounted forces. Healers were rushing across the battlefield, field tents were be- ing thrown up as the wounded were treated.
How many have been wounded or killed so far? How many will fall in the future?
Chapter: Kin Revival
“So, where are we going?” Penelope asked as Bracegar came into view, appearing to have been carved from a large sandstone out- cropping, the city was nestled into the red sands of the Selenus desert.
A city had grown around it, defending it.
The top of the stone was covered in a fog-covered forest. Green- ery sprouted around the outcropping and water flowed down its sides, feeding the city below.
“To the beast kin’s shrine,” Bruce said.
Damien looked at Bracegar as he rode on the back of Penelope.
Her speed was the fastest of all Anthony’s familiars.
They cut through the skies and people started to look up.
“Is it just me or is it getting a little heavy up here?” Damien asked.
“Let us pass.” Bruce’s words passed through the air and the weight lifted off them all. People started yelling all across the city of Bracegar as Penelope headed for the top of the stone outcrop- ping—the holiest land of all the beast kin, the place where their he- roes and proud ancestors were put to rest.
“That’s going to go over well,” Damien muttered as he grabbed the hammer on his back.
Penelope slowed as they got closer to the ground.
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They cut through the fog and Damien felt revitalized. She bat- ted her wings and she came to land on a path.
Even though it was day outside of the fog, underneath it, dark- ness greeted them.
“I’m running out of power to sustain myself.. I’ll wait till you’re finished.” Penelope’s form became smaller and Damien felt her pow- er dwindle. “Once I dissipate then I’ll return to Anthony and update him.”
15
“Thank you, Penelope.” Bruce bowed his head before, leading the way with his hands clasped behind his back.
They walked along the path. Motes of light flit around, illumi- nating their path. In the bamboo shoots and trees, there were mas- ters of different races talking to one another and then dispersing with a passing wind. Others were fishing in ponds.
Some sparred with one another or did alchemy.
They reached the end of the path. An ancient stone rested in the middle of the rock outcropping. It didn’t have harsh edges; it was just an oblong stone with carvings in it. Damien felt peaceful as he looked at the stone.
“You! You have come here to kill one of your fellow clan spirits! Forcefully removing Remus like that—do you know what that could have done! Our generals on the front need all the strength they can get against those Church of Light bastards!” A wolf kin man ap- peared from the fog. His eyes flashed viciously in anger and other eyes appeared in the area around Bruce.
“Oh, it seems that Remus is too weak to tell you everything.” Bruce pulled out his staff. “He told me what you did, Ulrick.”
He smacked his pole on the ground and chains appeared around the stone. Runes glowed on those chains as spell formations appeared around it, floating in mid-air.
“What we did? We saved our race! The humans were gearing for war but no one would listen. We needed to be ready. We were the victors and then they treated us as slaves!”
“Victors? We fought together—did you forget that?”
“What do you know? We thought that you were one of us, one of the warriors, the leaders and alphas. But you were just a weakling, looking to put your weapon up as soon as someone gave you an ex- cuse. You were a human’s familiar.” Ulrick spat on the ground.
“Step aside, Ulrick. The clan spirits are not just the war faction.
All deserve to have a voice,” Bruce said.
Ulrick let out a growl as he lunged forward, going from all fours to his rear legs. Twin swords appeared in his hands.
Bruce jabbed out with his pole, hitting one blade, and then swiped with the other end of his pole, shifting the other blade’s at- tack. He turned the pole between his hands, grabbing one end and sending it flying out. He lunged forward, his attack missing; a sword passed where his legs had been, sticking into the ground and dissipat- ing into smoke.
Bruce was off-balance; his last reaching strike opened him up.
Ulrick cut back, attacking with his remaining blade.
Bruce released his pole, dropping to the ground. He swept with his leg, taking out Ulrick’s leg. He grabbed his pole and advanced. A flick sent Ulrick’s other blade flying as two strikes kept him off- bal- ance and on the ground. Bruce dropped to the ground, on top of Ul- rich’s back, pinning him there with his pole along Ulrick’s neck, tilt- ing his head up and at an angle, at Bruce’s mercy.
“See, war runs in your veins. You’re like us. The weak remain weak while the strong need to fight to grow,” Ulrick said through gritted teeth, the pole stopping him from opening his mouth all the way.
“I did not like war. I fought to save, not to say it grew our strength. Death creates losses, no gains. Working together, building and growing. You may not have seen it, but right now what use is our anger, our want for war? It has come upon us anyway. Or did you not know you had sided with the Drafeng?”
Bruce’s words came out as a growl and the other eyes and half- formed clan spirits recoiled.
“Drafeng? Prove it!” Ulrick said through gritted teeth. Bruce turned his head to the side and looked at Damien.
Being a human, the other spirits hadn’t paid attention to him and he moved closer to the main stone.
His hammer glowed with purple flames as he swung it at the chains. The purple fires spread over them. The chains shivered and shook. Lines of chaotic power ran down them with words that weren’t part of Dena’s languages.
Everyone felt the devouring nature of the power held within those chains.
Ulrick’s expression was tight.
Bruce knew that he wouldn’t be able to admit to himself that he had betrayed the clans, the spirits, their kin—that he had brought in the power of chaos and the Drafeng into the heart of their society, into the Spirit Garden.
The whole garden started to shake as the clouds above the tem- ple trembled.
Beast kin started to rise across the garden, released from the shackles that had prevented them from appearing in their corporeal form and cutting them off from the world.
They stood, looking at the war faction members who had been part of the plot.
“You turned on the people in your own faction.” Bruce looked at some of the war faction faces that were filled with fury.
Four beast kin stepped forward: a male mole kin, a female cat kin, and squirrel kin, and a Umagi kin, a rare type of land octopus kin.
Each of them released a powerful aura as they stepped forward.
“Thank you, Guardian.” The mole kin was blind and walked with a staff but his weak eyesight didn’t seem to affect him. “There are a great number of werewolf spirits who grace our garden, valiant war- riors who have stood with us since the beginning. With the perse- cution of your people, we have watched as a line of Kin were wiped out.” The mole’s voice shook and the betraying war faction had a mix of expressions.
“They were half kin!” one cried out.
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bsp; “And you are no Kin of mine!” The mole hissed and the air seemed to turn solid. He reached out his hand, plucking out the hye- na kin. Using his staff, he slammed them into the ground.
“Betrayers of the Kin! You broke our vows to our people, to the Guardians, to Dena itself ! The humans might have started this war, but you kept it going, dancing to the Agent of Chaos’s tune. Clan spirits are meant to guide and assist their descendants, not ruin their futures by driving them into war again and again to try to amass power and greed! Do you not see the corruption within you!”
“Guardian, we are in need of your assistance.” The cat kin bowed her head. The mole looked to Damien as well.
“Please help remove the chaotic power within our fellow spirits.” Damien smiled at the cat kin’s request.
He pulled out a hammer. The air within the garden stirred. The power atop the garden seemed to be drawn into the center and Damien dropped his hammer. It rang out through the spirit lands and through Bracegar. People stopped in their tracks as a purple light bloomed from within the foggy lands above the garden.
Around Damien, a courtroom formed, with legendary leaders appearing as part of the council. The Umagi was pulled forward as the representative of the beast kin .
The different members of the courtroom were revealed. Some of the war faction spirits made to run but were chained in place.
“How are you so strong? You were never able to restrain us be- fore!” Ulrick yelled.
“See, the war faction always saves a little bit of their strength each time they join with one of our descendants. You do this to grow stronger. While we, the other factions, give all of our strength to the Kin we bond with. We are much weaker once we return to the gar- den, meaning that we need to recover for more time before
we join with our Kin. With you not allowing us to join with any more of our Kin, we recovered and although you stopped most of the offerings
getting through to us, some still did. While you were fighting with your wars, you were growing slowly, but as we had drained ourselves each time, recovering our complete strength took time, but we are stronger than ever before,” the squirrel kin said.
“With the extra offerings, we were able to get stronger and were going to challenge the chains that trapped us. But centuries went by and we waited. Until today.” The mole kin turned to the others who were around them.
Bruce looked at them all. There were hundreds if not thou- sands of corporeal forms standing there.
“What are you waiting for? The Kin need our help—go and find your champions.” The mole kin tapped his staff on the ground.
Some of the clan spirits dropped into the ground; others opened doorways and passed through them.
Bells started to ring in the distance, announcing the return of a clan spirit.
Spirits shot out of the garden, descending to the clans below or creating groups that flew through the skies toward their ancestral homes.
“Our Kin’s power will grow and we will devote ourselves to in- creasing their strength, to winning this war. To defeating the Drafeng and teaching them the past. The true past, with our wins and our losses,” the mole said.
He turned and bowed to Bruce. “Thank you.”
The remaining spirits all bowed to Bruce and he bowed back to them. They faded away to tend to their tasks.
The courtroom remained, with the court looking at the bound clan spirits.
“Let us cleanse them first,” the hob judge said.
“Better to work with the raw materials,” the dwarven judge agreed.
Flames shot through the chains and into the clan spirits. They let out a yell. Their bodies became more insubstantial as the chaotic power that had infected them over time and affected their minds waged a war with the Guardian Flames.
Watching them scream out, seeing how far the chaotic power had reached into their bodies, Bruce gritted his teeth.
***
“What happened?” Emperor Klyn demanded as he walked out of his private quarters and into the main hall.
“A phoenix coming from the west shot across the skies and en- tered the Spirit Garden. We dispatched guards to protect the gar- den but then there was a flash of purple flame as they were trying to get up there—” The commander was cut off as spirit bells started to ring out across the city.
Klyn looked out of the hall, his brows pinching together.
“What is happening? So many clan spirits have returned!” The others in the room were all confused by what was happening.
“Find out what is happening. Have the guards head into the gar- den. They should find out what is happening before attacking.” Klyn might be the emperor, but the Spirit Garden was the cen-
ter of the beast kin; it was where they all came from and where their an- cestors spirits rested.
It was Klyn’s duty above all else to protect and honor their an- cestral spirits. Without them, the beast kin would lose their ances- tral tattoos and heritage.
The ringing of the bells didn’t die down; there was more and more of them ringing out. Different clans were calling their people back, announcing that they would be having an immediate selec- tion of champions. Ancestral shrines and totems that people car-
ried with them started to glow. Beast kin across Dena were tested and ques- tioned by their ancestors.
The tattoo shamans sharpened their tools and checked their inks as they readied themselves to act as the conduit of their ances- tors’ power.
“Emperor, it is not just the fighting clan spirits—all of the lost spirits have returned!”
Klyn felt his clan spirit, Meraki, shift within him.
“All of them? That is not possible!” Meraki said, creating a pro- jection from Klyn’s body.
The messenger made to talk as something landed in front of the grand hall.
A man and an ox kin stood up.
“I, Damien All-Hammer, challenge Klyn, leader of the Boret.” A voice carried across the great hall and through the palace grounds.
Meraki snarled and retracted back into Klyn’s body.
Klyn stepped forward, his anger sweeping him up as he marched out of the hall. He looked at the armored knight in front of him. “Some young pup who does not know how big the world is? I do not have time to waste with you!”
“Damien All-Hammer, once leader of the werewolf clan, broth- ers to the Boret clan. Or has the emperor forgotten the law he put down, the old laws, going back before the union of all clans?”
“You!” Meraki hissed, projecting upon Klyn.
As their anger combined, Klyn was filled with rage that burned him to his core. He had worked hard to contain it—the mounting pressures, not knowing what was happening; he was losing his con- trol.
“I do not need to worry about some pup! Not even full grown, just some human throw-off who pretends to be beast kin! I accept your challenge!”
***
Fool. Bruce shook his head.
Meraki, Klyn’s Clan Spirit fused with Klyn’s body, lighting up his tattoos as he grew slightly with the power coursing through his body. His armor pulled tighter around him, a hybrid between a hu- man, a panther, and a bear. His body showed the signs of endless fights that had allowed him to gain his right to be Emperor.
Bruce watched Damien grip his hammer tighter, Bruce had seen Damien go all out only once on the battlefield, leaving a wave of de- struction behind him. He wielded the power of three differ- ent Clan Spirits and that had been hundreds of years ago, not long after he had become a champion of his clan.
The generals and attendants wanted to do something. But this was a duel and no one was allowed to stop it unless one of the groups cheated. It had been laid down by a clan leader and the em- peror had accepted.
“To the death!” Klyn yelled and rushed forward. He swung out his fist.
Damien moved forward, casually, stepping inside Klyn’s attack. He raised his hand and grabbed Klyn’s hand. Air rushed around him; surprise appeared in the depth of Klyn’s e
yes.
Damien pulled on his arm and stepped forward.
Klyn stumbled as he saw Damien’s hand moved for his face. He felt the slap burning on his cheek, hotter than any wound he had got- ten before. He rolled and dug his claws into the ground as he looked at the back of the knight.
“I am the pup? We shall see,” Damien said.
Klyn pulled out his twin swords, taking Damien seriously. He wanted nothing more than to rip him apart.
How far has his reason been eroded by Meraki talking in his ear and the chaotic power burning within his body?
Damien clashed with Klyn again. His movements were swift and agile as he used a hand to deflect the attacks.
“How strong must he be to deflect those attacks?”
“Strong. Think of how fast his eyes and movements are to be that accurate to deflect the blade and dodge attacks while moving for- ward.”
Two slaps sounded out as Klyn was then kicked away.
He ran forward again clashing with Damien. Only to be thrown away yet again, it was like a child trying to fight a seasoned warrior. Damien held his Warhammer to the side, using it would be too much.
Klyn let out a roar black and silver tattoos glowed, his muscles bulged out and a shadow appeared around him for a half second. Damien stood there with mild interest. Waiting for Klyn to finish the transformation.
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