The Willbreaker (Book 1)

by Mike Simmons

  “Well, sire, I can’t say much for your hospitality here. The food is terrible,” Bram said, spitting out a piece of something from his teeth.

  Cedric stared at the Avatar in disbelief. What in the hell happened here, and how come he is alive?

  Aurora looked out the window of the white, marble tower that stood high above her city. This tower, one of five in her city, smelled of sugar incense and bloomed with various sizes and shades of lilac. White satin curtains and rugs decorated the walls and floors, and golden framed mirrors hung on every wall. Golden water bowls shaped into the form of opening flowers, filled with lavender water and topped with pink rose petals, adorned the tables and floor. A sole bed sheeted in the world’s finest silk sheets sat alone and unused against the far wall.

  Aurora stared down at the army of Gifted wielding their power to rebuild the damage caused by her fierce enemy, Lord Cedric Reinhold. The outer guard towers were crushed, the defense walls toppled, and everything lit aflame. Aurora contained the rage that festered inside of her. She felt violated and threatened.

  It had been ten days since the small group of Blade Maidens returned to Orlimay, bearing word of Reinhold’s threats. He called her an oppressor and a murder. She gritted her teeth in anger.

  Ivy Arclight entered the room, slowly. She could have posed as a double for her sister, from her high cheekbones to her thin red lips. Her red robes, trimmed at the cuffs and neck with a bright yellow band, brushed the floor as she entered. She peered around, running a single finger through the water of one of the flower bowls. Quickly, she retreated her hand and bowed her upper body to the floor.

  “Sister, our retaliation force is ready, two-hundred thousand strong. It is everything we have. I even had to pull Maidens from the prisons and guard walls.”

  Aurora’s words were slow and drawn out. “I don’t care. They are on the move, and this action cannot go unpunished. If Cedric Reinhold thinks he can upstage me, in my house, then he is gravely mistaken. He will pay for his actions in the blood of his people.”

  A soft knock rapped on the door. Aurora did not turn to acknowledge it, but Ivy did.

  “What do you want?”

  An attending maid whispered something, and Ivy answered, “Alright, send her up.”

  Aurora continued to look out the window, never turning her head. After a moment, gentle footsteps approached the room. A slender woman, with long and straight brown hair entered the room holding her fingers together in front of her, small bits of red satin cloth hanging between her fingers. Ivy turned to look at Aurora, who no longer looked out the window; she turned and gave the woman in the doorway her full attention.

  Victoria gave a small curtsy and glanced at Ivy, as if asking what she should do. Ivy nodded. “Go ahead.”

  Victoria hesitated and then moved her eyes to Empress Aurora. She took one small step, then another. Nervously, she held her hands outward, offering Aurora the item in her hand that was wrapped in fine red satin. The item in her palm was the size of a small egg. Aurora’s eyes locked on it, as if it were a viper ready to strike. Aurora’s eyes quickly darted to meet Victoria’s, then went right back to her hands. She gave a small nod.

  Victoria raised her other hand, grabbing a corner of the red satin cloth, and lifted it from the glowing, red metal elephant figurine underneath. It amazed her; dull red metal, semi-transparent like a raw ruby, shaped and carved into a tiny elephant, equipped with saddle and tusks. It rested in the center of her palm and Aurora slowly reached out to grab it.

  Victoria pulled her hand back an inch. “Wait, Samuel. You promised.”

  Aurora froze and then pulled her hand back.

  “Yes. Your Son. Right.” The look of astonishment had faded from her face, replaced with a stone cold, hard glare. Aurora looked at Ivy and nodded in affirmation.

  Ivy spoke up. “First, give her the idol. We will go get your son. You will never want for anything again.”

  With one last glance at Ivy, Victoria thrust her hand forward, offering the idol once again to her Empress. Aurora snatched the idol from her hand, fingers wrapped tightly around it, and pulled it to her chest. Power, raw and pure, pounded within her. A thousand galaxies of energy, more vast than the boundaries of infinite thought, came to life, filling her body and soul with inconceivable function and potential. Her visions became clear, like the waters of the Elven Glades; sharp, precise, and ever so perfect. The previous unreachable boundaries of her mind were now a distant thought. Power spilled from her being.

  “Whoa…” Ivy whispered. She pressed up against the wall staring at her sister in awe, as if she lost her balance and used the wall to stop her. Victoria looked terrified, and amazed. Aurora looked at them both, tilting her head to the side, as she saw them with new vision.

  “Leave us,” Ivy demanded of Victoria. “Tell Princess to reunite you with your son,” she said as she pushed a small velvet bag of coins into her arms. The weight of the bag surprised Victoria, judging from the look on her face as she wrapped her fingers around it. Victoria immediately turned and vanished down the stairway.

  “Order Gretchen to take the armies across the border. Greylin and Jellindor will be unguarded when they get there. Destroy them, and raze them to ashes. Kill everyone in the way. Burn the crops, kill their livestock, and leave no building standing. Ash. Cover the world in it.”

  Ivy said, almost pleading, “Sister, you should let me lead the armies--”

  “No.” The answer came before Ivy finished speaking. “You will march with the Kella’Dune up the Paraline River.”

  Ivy’s eyebrow rose, with pleasure. “The Guardians? Really?”

  “Prophecies are coming to pass, fate is running a head on collision with us, and I plan on challenging destiny. Are our actions predetermined by what is written, or with the proper tools, can we rewrite our futures? Time will tell.” She looked down at her closed hand, hiding the idol.

  “Go Ivy. Make haste, and be warned sister; blood will be spilled in the Paraline.”

  “Not my blood, sister.” She gave an obedient nod and departed down the stairs.

  Aurora gripped the small elephant tightly in her hand, becoming aware of his presence. Never before could she feel him, although she had tried numerous times before. She did not have the power, but now, there he waited in the deepest recesses of her mind, everywhere and nowhere.

  “Watcher…” she whispered.

  The words echoed elsewhere, in a place away from the world, through the black jagged cliffs and over the fifty-foot guard wall covered in sharp blade-like rocks.

  “Watcher…” she said again.

  Blowing on the tips of the wind, her voice moved like haunted howls past the black armored men prowling the walls, all moving in unison, and into the colossal stone fortress.

  “Watcher!” she screamed.

  Her voice broke barriers, booming across the time-lapsed sky, purple and white, fast and slow, hiding the three yellow moons draped high above. The man in the sole tower, draped in a heavy black wool cloak, covering his head and dragging on the floor, jumped as if startled. He stood around a black granite well, holding water that illuminated the small room in ghostly shades of white. Creatures moved in the rafters, screeching and clawing around, staring down with hundreds of glowing green eyes.

  Her voice focused and reached, and her next words came from the room as if she stood there.

  “Watcher, we need to strike a bargain.”

  The Watcher looked around, surprised. His voice sounded like coarse bone grinding on a stone wheel.

  “You finally found me, Empress. Impressive.”

  The wind howled through the arrow slit windows like screams of the dying. The sounds of tearing wood came from above him, where the creatures hung on to the rafter boards with taloned feet. They moved apprehensively, flapping their large bat wings as they bumped into each other, shrieking combatively. The green eyes of the Screechers created a ghostly atmosphere in the room below them.

  The Watc
her rubbed his hands together anxiously. His hands seemed frail; skin the color of the tar with mixed hues of deep blue, bony tendons stretching from his wrist to his fingers, each topped with sharp pointed nails.

  The Watcher stood no taller than most chairs. He was small in size, but prodigious in stature. His power here, in this world, could not be matched, limited only by his imagination.

  He controlled the power of creation, molding mind and matter into forces for his disposal; the Screechers, bat-like terrors of air, the Kella’Dune, gigantic six-armed creatures also knows as Guardians, and the Hive, the cloned warriors of one mind who protect the castle.

  The Watcher: neither man nor beast, a creature of mixed worlds, warped time, and long abandoned magic. His very existence is a mystery with no known parents or origins. He lives in a world unknown, where time and space are as warped as ocean timber. Some believed his world is a barren wasteland, dry venomous wind whipping across the black ashen hills. Three moons hung somber in the charcoal sky, where illuminated purple clouds blazed hastily by, clearing the entire sky view in only seconds.

  “Watcher, I need to bargain for more Guardians,” her voice sounded out, clear and solid.

  The Watcher snickered as he rattled off words.

  “Guardians, oh Guardians! No simple fee! You got not one, but you got three!”

  Aurora spoke calmly in response. “Three is not enough. I am waging the war of a lifetime and I want to crush my enemies into the ground. I want nothing left for them to stand behind. Everything will be destroyed. I will hammer the world so hard it shakes, sending fear and doubt to all of my enemies. My name will symbolize an unstoppable force. I need more of the Kella’Dune.”

  “A dangerous game you’ve decided to play,

  you want the goods but can you pay?

  I’ve cleared your vaults for just the three,

  what more can you get to give me?

  Something you have that I have seen,

  I’ve always wanted to bed a Queen.”

  Before the Watcher finished his words, the Empress already spoke.

  “Absolutely not!” Aurora protested. “No way. Forget it. Pick something else.”

  “You see the predicament that we are now in, you want my minions so you can win, but you won’t pay the piper’s price, you gamble a game without your dice. What have you got that I may need, so my armies of Dune you may lead?” He laughed maniacally.

  After a moment of silence, he spoke.

  “Your voice reaches here so calm and clear;

  it’s in my room and in my ear.

  You are gone and stars away,

  your sister's life, what do you say?”

  The Hive clones walked on the guard walls surrounding the castle. In unison, they looked over the walls, checking the ground beneath for danger. When cleared, the minions, all of a single mind, moved back to their patrols.

  Aurora’s and the Watcher’s voices faintly floated down from the sole tower in the center of the courtyard. The two rotated in conversation, back and forth, bargaining, for seconds, or hours. At the end of it, Aurora’s final word wisped down throughout the desolate world like a judge’s gavel, “Fine.”

  Chapter 12 - Out of the Frying Pan

  Brandon walked from the cave, his trexalite swords hanging loosely in his hands, to face a fully armored man with white hair. Brandon took a few steps into the fading light and collapsed. Edward and Jasmine bounded onto the terrace towards Brandon. Donald held his mace defensively staring at the entrance, as more men exited the darkness. They came out slowly, shielding their faces from the last rays of light shooting across the sky, oblivious to Donald, Edward, and Jasmine.

  Edward rushed to Brandon, weary of the two glowing blades that rested on the ground.

  "He's alive, but he's in bad shape. Let us get to him to the water’s edge. He needs water!" Edward said.

  Jasmine stared at his face mournfully, as she rubbed his dirty cheek with the back of her fingers. Her eyes held back the small tears that built up as she watched him. They could see no sign of the Bauth'Dok. Donald rushed up to one of the escaping miners.

  "Where are the Bauth'Dok? Why are they not coming out after you?" Donald urged a miner. The miner looked at Donald as if seeing him for the first time.

  "The Bauth'Dok? They were told to stay down in the caves . . ."

  "By whom?" Donald asked.

  "By . . . him." The miner said, pointing at Brandon.

  Donald turned his head to look at Brandon, baffled. The miner joined the rest of the men who walked by Brandon's limp body, thanked him, and headed down the mountain.

  "I have no idea what is going on here, but we have to get Brandon down from here. Let us move." Edward commanded.

  Donald latched his mace to his hip and scooped Brandon up in his arms. Jasmine stayed close enough to watch Brandon's every move. The three followed the line of miners to the base of the mountain. Donald never put Brandon down.

  As they neared the river, Edward cleared a small patch of ground with his feet, and Donald gently set Brandon down.

  "I will get some water and try to catch some fish. Jasmine, would you mind starting a fire?" Edward asked.

  "I'll get right on it," Jasmine replied, already looking for driftwood and fire starter.

  Brandon did not know what happened, or how he got here. He moaned as fatigue overtook him and the nightmares of his experience flooded his mind. The day’s events came to life as he relived them in a haunting nightmare.

  Brandon's back pressed against the rock building; he had to get to the throne area. He had to kill the Bauth'Dok King if he would ever be free from captivity. Looking around, he noted his position in the city relative to the throne. He needed to move upland. Running across the empty street, Brandon ended up in between the alleyway of two buildings. One street down, a hundred more to go. Maybe I'll get lucky.

  Brandon turned into the next street as the unworldly blade of the Bauth'Dok King cut like a hot iron through his flesh, ribs, organs, and out his back. The dark, red-skinned creature, wearing the black-bladed crown on his head, withdrew his hand from the sword he buried into Brandon's chest. The pain overwhelmed him until all went numb. Brandon's vision became glazed and unclear as if blinded in light. He looked down at his chest below the slave driver necklace, to see an inch of red-glowing metal between the swords cross guard and his leaking body. Blood soaked his clothes. He tried to take a breath, but the sword that ran through him held his chest tight. Brandon looked at the Bauth'Dok King who hissed and clicked its tongue.

  "There will be no escaping today, Willbreaker," the King said, taking a step back from Brandon.

  Brandon fell down to his knees, arms hanging to his sides as his heart slowed to a stop. The haze around his vision faded into darkness. The sounds of the city around him went quiet.

  "Die, Willbreaker. Your time has come to an end," echoed through his thoughts like a haunted whisper.

  Images of his life raced through Brandon's mind. They appeared then disappeared in an instant, but to Brandon they lasted for hours. He saw Margaret, alive and well, laughing at him as he ran through the rain as a child. Then Matthew putting a handful of worms in Bella Lynn's lunch pail, and his old dog, Maxwell, running through the field retrieving the stick he tossed. The next vision strayed away from his life. He saw the world, as if soaring above it on an eagle; plains, fields, farms, and cities raced beneath him. Villagers with smiling faces and children waved to him as he passed. Golden fields covered the lands. As he flew, the gold turned into ash and flames.

  Trees crackled and toppled under the blanket of fire that ravaged the earth. Homes and shops smoked and burned. People ran from armored knights who bore an embossed letter "A" upon the right corner of their polished chest plates. Men, husbands, brothers, and children, lined the streets in rows on their knees as the Maidens with their bladed staves beheaded them. The Maidens pulled small girls out of their burning houses by their hair and loaded them into transport wagons head
ed towards Orlimay.

  Brandon flew over the wreckage, over the carnage and chaos, towards Castle Belkin. As he flew over a ridge the castle came to view, its towers broken and collapsed. Fire belched out of the holes in the castle walls. Brandon topped the outside wall where he looked into the courtyard. Lord Cedric Reinhold, on his knees, begged the woman standing before him for the lives of his people. Tears streamed down his face. He pleaded to her with hands together, weeping for the loss of his Kingdom. Brandon stopped on the walls, seeing only the woman's back, whose auburn hair swung freely down her back. Lord Reinhold's cries and pleas softened to muffles as the woman in front of him withdrew a curved long sword. She moved to the left, blocking Brandon's view of Lord Reinhold. She raised the sword above her head, and in a flash, brought it down upon the fallen King. Cedric's head rolled off to the side. His headless body tipped over as blood spilled from the wound. The woman turned and looked right at Brandon. Aurora. This would be the future. This is what would happen if Brandon did not intervene.

  Brandon’s life had fallen past the point he could heal, but something inside him lit up with spiritual power. He looked at himself as if he floated outside his body. The Bauth'Dok King stood five feet in front of him, hands on its hips, watching as his body shut down into the sleep of death.

  If the Red Star fails, fire and ash will overtake the world. Only one may stand against the scorn of the Woman gone mad. The lives of many innocent rest in the hands of the man who can stop death.

  Brandon's power exploded, filling his universe with blinding white light. Power erupted with volcanic force, centered on the trexalite sword that stuck from his chest. Brandon's head rose from its fallen resting place, and looked forward, eyes still closed. His arms moved to the hilt of the trexalite sword. The creature stepped back from Brandon in disbelief.

  Brandon's hands gripped the sword handle and gave a jerk. The sword thrust outward ten inches, grinding against Brandon's bones. Brandon's eyes opened, brilliantly blue, and stared forward as if in a trance. Another jerk and the sword came free. Blood gushed from his body. A simple blink of his eyes and the wound sealed shut. The Bauth'Dok King backup up again.